THE  EMANCIPATION  OF 
MASSACHUSETTS 

THE  DREAM  AND  THE  REALITY 

BY 
BROOKS  ADAMS 

REVISED  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

fCbe  tttoetfibe  prejtf  Cambnbge 

'in- 


COPYRIGHT,  1887,  1915,   AND    1919,  BY  BROOKS   ADAMS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


PREFATORY  NOTE 
TO  FIRST  EDITION. 

I  AM  under  the  deepest  obligations  to  the  Hon. 
Mellen  Chamberlain  and  Mr.  Charles  Deane. 

The  generosity  of  my  friend  Mr.  Frank  Hamilton 
Gushing  in  putting  at  my  disposal  the  unpublished 
results  of  his  researches  among  the  Zunis  is  in  keep- 
ing with  the  originality  and  power  of  his  mind.  With- 
out his  aid  my  attempt  would  have  been  impossible. 
I  have  also  to  thank  Prof.  Henry  C.  Chapman,  J.  A. 
Gordon,  M.  D.,  Prof.  William  James,  and  Alpheus 
Hyatt,  Esq.,  for  the  kindness  with  which  they  assisted 
me.  I  feel  that  any  merit  this  volume  may  possess  is 
due  to  these  gentlemen ;  its  faults  are  all  my  own. 

BROOKS  ADAMS. 
QUINCY,  September  17,  1886. 


2037451 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE 


CHAPTER  L 
THE  COMMONWEALTH 171 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE  ANTINOMIANS 214 

CHAPTER  III. 
THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM  ........  249 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  ANABAPTISTS 275 

CHAPTER  V. 
THE  QUAKERS 298 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  SCIHE  FACIAS  .  .  349 


CHAPTER  VII. 
THE  WITCHCRAFT 38<; 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
BRATTLE  CHURCH .  407 


Vl  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
HARVARD  COLLEGE 425 

CHAPTER  X. 
THE  LAWYERS 456 

CHAPTER  XI. 
THE  REVOLUTION .  484 


PREFACE 
TO  NEW  EDITION. 


PREFACE 
TO  NEW  EDITION. 

CHAPTER  I. 

I  WROTE  this  little  volume  more  than  thirty  years 
ago,  since  when  I  have  hardly  opened  it.  Therefore 
I  now  read  it  almost  as  if  it  were  written  by  another 
man,  and  I  find  to  my  relief  that,  on  the  whole,  I  think 
rather  better  of  it  than  I  did  when  I  published  it.  In- 
deed, as  a  criticism  of  what  were  then  the  accepted 
views  of  Massachusetts  history,  as  expounded  by  her 
most  authoritative  historians,  I  see  nothing  in  it  to 
retract  or  even  to  modify.  I  do,  however,  somewhat 
regret  the  rather  acrimonious  tone  which  I  occasion- 
ally adopted  when  speaking  of  the  more  conservative 
section  of  the  clergy.  Not  that  I  think  that  the 
Mathers,  for  example,  and  their  like,  did  not  deserve 
all,  or,  indeed,  more  than  all  I  ever  said  or  thought 
of  them,  but  because  I  conceive  that  equally  effective 
strictures  might  have  been  conveyed  in  urbaner  lan- 
guage; and,  as  I  age,  I  shrink  from  anything  akin  to 
invective,  even  in  what  amounts  to  controversy. 

Therefore  I  have  now  nothing  to  alter  in  the  Eman- 
cipation of  Massachusetts,  viewed  as  history,  though  I 
might  soften  its  asperities  somewhat,  here  and  there; 
but  when  I  come  to  consider  it  as  philosophy,  I  am 
startled  to  observe  the  gap  which  separates  the  present 
epoch  from  my  early  middle  life. 


4  PREFACE. 

The  last  generation  was  strongly  Darwinian  in  the 
sense  that  it  accepted,  almost  as  a  tenet  of  religious 
faith,  the  theory  that  human  civilization  is  a  pro- 
gressive evolution,  moving  on  the  whole  steadily 
toward  perfection,  from  a  lower  to  a  higher  intellectual 
plane,  and,  as  a  necessary  part  of  its  progress,  develop- 
ing a  higher  degree  of  mental  vigor.  I  need  hardly 
observe  that  all  belief  in  democracy  as  a  final  solution 
of  social  ills,  all  confidence  in  education  as  a  means  to 
attaining  to  universal  justice,  and  all  hope  of  approx- 
imating to  the  rule  of  moral  right  in  the  administra- 
tion of  law,  was  held  to  hinge  on  this  great  funda- 
mental dogma,  which,  it  followed,  it  was  almost  im- 
pious to  deny,  or  even  to  doubt.  Thus,  on  the  first 
page  of  my  book,  I  observe,  as  if  it  were  axiomatic, 
that,  at  a  given  moment,  toward  the  opening  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  "Europe  burst  from  her  mediaeval 
torpor  into  the  splendor  of  the  Renaissance,"  and 
further  on  I  assume,  as  an  equally  self-evident  axiom, 
that  freedom  of  thought  was  the  one  great  permanent 
advance  which  western  civilization  made  by  all  the 
agony  and  bloodshed  of  the  Reformation.  Apart  al- 
together from  the  fact  that  I  should  doubt  whether, 
in  the  year  1919,  any  intelligent  and  educated  man 
would  be  inclined  to  maintain  that  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries  were,  as  contrasted  with  the  nine- 
teenth, ages  of  intellectual  torpor,  what  startles  me 
in  these  paragraphs  is  the  self-satisfied  assumption  of 
the  finality  of  my  conclusions.  I  posit,  as  a  fact  not 
to  be  controverted,  that  our  universe  is  an  expression 


PREFACE.  5 

of  an  universal  law,  which  the  nineteenth  century 
had  discovered  and  could  formulate. 

During  the  past  thirty  years  I  have  given  this  sub- 
ject my  best  attention,  and  now  I  am  so  far  from 
assenting  to  this  proposition  that  my  mind  tends  in 
the  opposite  direction.  Each  day  I  live  I  am  less  able 
to  withstand  the  suspicion  that  the  universe,  far  from 
being  an  expression  of  law  originating  in  a  single 
primary  cause,  is  a  chaos  which  admits  of  reaching 
no  equilibrium,  and  with  which  man  is  doomed  eter- 
nally and  hopelessly  to  contend.  For  human  society,  to 
deserve  the  name  of  civilization,  must  be  an  embodi- 
ment of  order,  or  must  at  least  tend  toward  a  social 
equilibrium.  I  take,  as  an  illustration  of  my  meaning, 
the  development  of  the  domestic  relations  of  our  race. 

I  assume  it  to  be  generally  admitted,  that  possibly 
man's  first  and  probably  his  greatest  advance  toward 
order  —  and,  therefore,  toward  civilization  —  was 
the  creation  of  the  family  as  the  social  nucleus.  As 
Napoleon  said,  when  the  lawyers  were  drafting  his 
Civil  Code,  "Make  the  family  responsible  to  its  head, 
and  the  head  to  me,  and  I  will  keep  order  in  France." 
And  yet  although  our  dependence  on  the  family  sys- 
tem has  been  recognized  in  every  age  and  in  every 
land,  there  has  been  no  restraint  on  personal  liberty 
which  has  been  more  resented,  by  both  men  and  women 
alike,  than  has  been  this  bond  which,  when  perfect, 
constrains  one  man  and  one  woman  to  live  a  joint 
life  until  death  shall  them  part,  for  the  propagation, 
care,  and  defence  of  their  children. 


6  PREFACE. 

The  result  is  that  no  civilization  has,  as  yet,  ever 
succeeded,  and  none  promises  in  the  immediate  future 
to  succeed,  in  enforcing  this  primary  obligation,  and 
we  are  thus  led  to  consider  the  cause,  inherent  in  our 
complex  nature,  which  makes  it  impossible  for  us  to 
establish  an  equilibrium  between  mind  and  matter. 
A  difficulty  which  never  has  been  even  partially  over- 
come, which  wrecked  the  Roman  Empire  and  the 
Christian  Church,  which  has  wrecked  all  systems  of 
law,  and  which  has  never  been  more  lucidly  defined 
than  by  Saint  Paul,  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans, 
"For  we  know  that  the  law  is  spiritual:  but  I  am 
carnal,  sold  under  sin.  For  that  which  I  do,  I  allow 
not:  for  what  I  would,  that  do  I  not;  but  what  I  hate, 
that  do  I.  ...  Now  then  it  is  no  more  I  that  do  it,  but 
sin  that  dwelleth  in  me.  .  .  .  For  the  good  that  I  would, 
I  do  not:  but  the  evil  which  I  would  not,  that  I  do.  ... 
For  I  delight* in  the  law  of  God  after  the  inward  man: 
.  .  .  But  I  see  another  law  in  my  members,  warring 
against  the  law  of  my  mind,  and  bringing  me  into 
captivity  to  the  law  of  sin  which  is  in  my  members. 
O  wretched  man  that  I  am!  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death?"  l 

And  so  it  has  been  since  a  time  transcending  the 
limits  of  imagination.  Here  in  a  half-a-dozen  sentences 
Saint  Paul  exposes  the  ceaseless  conflict  between  mind 
and  matter,  whose  union,  though  seemingly  the 
essence  of  life,  creates  a  condition  which  we  cannot 
comprehend  and  to  which  we  could  not  hope  to  con- 
1  Romans  vn,  14-24. 


PREFACE.  1 

form,  even  if  we  could  comprehend  it.  In  short,  which 
indicates  chaos  as  being  the  probable  core  of  an  uni- 
verse from  which  we  must  evolve  order,  if  ever  we 
are  to  cope  with  violence,  fraud,  crime,  war,  and 
general  brutality.  Wheresoever  we  turn  the  prospect 
is  the  same.  If  we  gaze  upon  the  heavens  we  discern 
immeasurable  spaces  sprinkled  with  globules  of  mat- 
ter, to  which  our  earth  seems  to  be  more  or  less  akin, 
but  all  plunging,  apparently,  both  furiously  and  aim- 
lessly, from  out  of  an  infinite  past  to  an  equally  im- 
measurable future. 

Whence  this  material  mass  comes,  or  what  its  wild 
flight  portends,  we  neither  know  nor  could  we,  prob- 
ably, comprehend  even  were  its  secret  divulged  to  us 
by  a  superior  intelligence,  always  conceding  that  there 
be  such  an  intelligence,  or  any  secret  to  disclose. 
These  latter  speculations  lie,  however,  beyond  the 
scope  of  my  present  purpose.  It  suffices  if  science 
permits  me  to  postulate  (a  concession  by  science 
which  I  much  doubt  if  it  could  make)  that  matter,  as 
we  know  it,  has  the  semblance  of  being  what  we  call 
a  substance,  charged  with  a  something  which  we 
define  as  energy,  but  which  at  all  events  simulates  a 
vital  principle  resembling  heat,  seeking  to  escape  into 
space,  where  it  cools.  Thus  the  stars,  having  blazed 
until  their  vital  principle  is  absorbed  in  space,  sink 
into  relative  torpor,  or,  as  the  astronomers  say,  die. 
The  trees  and  plants  diffuse  their  energy  in  the  in- 
finite, and,  at  length,  when  nothing  but  a  shell  re- 
mains, rot.  Lastly,  our  fleshly  bodies,  when  the  union 


8  PREFACE. 

between  mind  and  matter  is  dissolved,  crumble  into 
dust.  When  the  involuntary  partnership  between  mind 
and  matter  ceases  through  death,  it  is  possible,  or  at 
least  conceivable,  that  the  impalpable  soul,  admitting 
that  such  a  thing  exists,  may  survive  in  some  medium 
where  it  may  be  free  from  material  shackles,  but, 
while  life  endures,  the  flesh  has  wants  which  must  be 
gratified,  and  which,  therefore,  take  precedence  of  the 
yearnings  of  the  soul,  just  as  Saint  Paul  points  out 
was  the  case  with  himself;  and  herein  lies  the  inex- 
orable conflict  between  the  moral  law  and  the  law 
of  competition  which  favors  the  strong,  and  from 
whence  comes  all  the  abominations  of  selfishness,  of 
violence,  of  cruelty  and  crime. 

Approached  thus,  perhaps  no  historical  fragment 
is  more  suggestive  than  the  exodus  of  the  Jews  from 
Egypt  under  Moses,  who  was  the  first  great  optimist, 
nor  one  which  is  seldomer  read  with  an  eye  to  the  con- 
trast which  it  discloses  between  Moses  the  law-giver, 
the  idealist,  the  religious  prophet,  and  the  visionary; 
and  Moses  the  political  adventurer  and  the  keen  and 
unscrupulous  man  of  the  world.  And  yet  it  is  here 
at  the  point  at  which  mind  and  matter  clashed,  that 
Moses  merits  most  attention.  For  Moses  and  the 
Mosaic  civilization  broke  down  at  this  point,  which 
is,  indeed,  the  chasm  which  has  engulfed  every  pro- 
gressive civilization  since  the  dawn  of  time.  And  the 
value  of  the  story  as  an  illustration  of  scientific  his- 
tory is  its  familiarity,  for  no  Christian  child  lives  who 
has  not  been  brought  up  on  it. 


PREFACE.  9 

We  have  all  forgotten  when  we  first  learned  how  the 
Jews  came  to  migrate  to  Egypt  during  the  years  of 
the  famine,  when  Joseph  had  become  the  minister  of 
Pharaoh  through  his  acuteness  in  reading  dreams. 
Also  how,  after  their  settlement  in  the  land  of  Goshen, 
—  which  is  the  Egyptian  province  lying  at  the  end  of 
the  ancient  caravan  road,  which  Abraham  travelled, 
leading  from  Palestine  to  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  and 
which  had  been  the  trade  route,  or  path  of  least  re- 
sistance, between  Asia  and  Africa,  probably  for  ages 
before  the  earliest  of  human  traditions,  —  they  pros- 
pered exceedingly.  But  at  length  they  fell  into  a  spe- 
cies of  bondage  which  lasted  several  centuries,  during 
which  they  multiplied  so  rapidly  that  they  finally 
raised  in  the  Egyptian  government  a  fear  of  their 
domination.  Nor,  considering  subsequent  events,  was 
this  apprehension  unreasonable.  At  all  events  the 
Egyptian  government  is  represented,  as  a  measure  of 
self -protection,  as  proposing  to  kill  male  Jewish  babies 
in  order  to  reduce  the  Jewish  military  strength;  and 
it  was  precisely  at  this  juncture  that  Moses  was  born. 
Moses,  indeed,  escaped  the  fate  which  menaced  him, 
but  only  by  a  narrow  chance,  and  he  was  nourished 
by  his  mother  in  an  atmosphere  of  hate  which  tinged 
his  whole  life,  causing  him  always  to  feel  to  the  Egyp- 
tians as  the  slave  feels  to  his  master.  After  birth  the 
mother  hid  the  child  as  long  as  possible,  but  when  she 
could  conceal  the  infant  no  longer  she  platted  a  basket 
of  reeds,  smeared  it  with  pitch,  and  set  it  adrift  in  the 
Nile,  where  it  was  likely  to  be  found,  leaving  her  eld- 


10  PREFACE. 

est  daughter,  named  Miriam,  to  watch  over  it.  Pres- 
ently Pharaoh's  daughter  came,  as  was  her  habit,  to 
the  river  to  bathe,  as  Moses's  mother  expected  that 
she  would,  and  there  she  noticed  the  "ark"  floating 
among  the  bulrushes.  She  had  it  brought  her,  and, 
noticing  Miriam,  she  caused  the  girl  to  engage  her 
mother,  whom  Miriam  pointed  out  to  her,  as  a  nurse. 
Taking  pity  on  the  baby  the  kind-hearted  princess 
adopted  it  and  brought  it  up  as  she  would  had  it  been 
her  own,  and,  as  the  child  grew,  she  came  to  love  the 
boy,  and  had  him  educated  with  care,  and  this  edu- 
cation must  be  kept  in  mind  since  the  future  of  Moses 
as  a  man  turned  upon  it.  For  Moses  was  most  pe- 
culiarly a  creation  of  his  age  and  of  his  environment; 
if,  indeed,  he  may  not  be  considered  as  an  incarna- 
tion of  Jewish  thought  gradually  shaped  during  many 
centuries  of  priestly  development. 

According  to  tradition,  Moses  from  childhood  was 
of  great  personal  beauty,  so  much  so  that  passers  by 
would  turn  to  look  at  him,  and  this  early  promise  was 
fulfilled  as  he  grew  to  be  a  man.  Tall  and  dignified, 
with  long,  shaggy  hair  and  beard,  of  a  reddish  hue 
tinged  with  gray,  he  is  described  as  "wise  as  beauti- 
ful." Educated  by  his  foster-mother  as  a  priest  at 
Heliopolis,  he  was  taught  the  whole  range  of  Chaldean 
and  Assyrian  literature,  as  well  as  the  Egyptian,  and 
thus  became  acquainted  with  all  the  traditions  of 
oriental  magic:  which,  just  at  that  period,  was  in  its 
fullest  development.  Consequently,  Moses  must  have 
been  familiar  with  the  doctrines  of  Zoroaster. 


PREFACE.  11 

Men  who  stood  thus,  and  had  such  an  education, 
were  called  Wise  Men,  Magi,  or  Magicians,  and  had 
great  influence,  not  so  much  as  priests  of  a  God,  as 
enchanters  who  dealt  with  the  supernatural  as  a  pro- 
fession. Daniel,  for  example,  belonged  to  this  class. 
He  was  one  of  three  captive  Jews  whom  Nebuchad- 
nezzar, King  of  Babylon,  gave  in  charge  to  the  master 
of  his  eunuchs,  to  whom  he  should  teach  the  learning 
and  the  tongue  of  the  Chaldeans.  Daniel,  very  shortly, 
by  his  natural  ability,  brought  himself  and  his  com- 
rades into  favor  with  the  chief  eunuch,  who  finally 
presented  them  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  conversed 
with  them  and  found  them  "ten  times  better  than  all 
the  magicians  and  astrologers  that  were  in  all  his 
realm." 

The  end  of  it  was,  of  course,  that  Nebuchadnezzar 
dreamed  a  dream  which  he  forgot  when  he  awoke  and 
he  summoned  "the  magicians,  and  the  astrologers, 
and  the  sorcerers,  and  the  Chaldeans,  for  to  shew  the 
king  his  dreams,"  but  they  could  not  unless  he  told 
it  them.  This  vexed  the  king,  who  declared  that 
unless  they  should  tell  him  his  dream  with  the  inter- 
pretation thereof,  they  should  be  cut  in  pieces.  So  the 
decree  went  forth  that  all  "the  wise  men"  of  Babylon 
should  be  slain,  and  they  sought  Daniel  and  his  fellows 
to  slay  them.  Therefore,  it  appears  that  together 
with  its  privileges  and  advantages  the  profession  of 
magic  was  dangerous  in  those  ages.  Daniel,  on  this 
occasion,  according  to  the  tradition,  succeeded  in 
revealing  and  interpreting  the  dream;  and,  in  return, 


12  PREFACE. 

Nebuchadnezzar  made  Daniel  a  great  man,  chief 
governor  of  the  province  of  Babylon. 

Precisely  a  similar  tale  is  told  of  Joseph,  who,  hav- 
ing been  sold  by  his  brethren  to  Midianitish  merchant- 
men with  camels,  bearing  spices  and  balm,  journeying 
along  the  ancient  caravan  road  toward  Egypt,  was  in 
turn  sold  by  them  to  Potiphar,  the  captain  of  Pha- 
raoh's guard. 

And  Joseph  rose  in  Potiphar's  service,  and  after 
many  alternations  of  fortune  was  brought  before 
Pharaoh,  as  Daniel  had  been  before  Nebuchadnezzar, 
and  because  he  interpreted  Pharaoh's  dream  accept- 
ably, he  was  made  "ruler  over  all  the  land  of  Egypt" 
and  so  ultimately  became  the  ancestor  whom  Moses 
most  venerated  and  whose  bones  he  took  with  him 
when  he  set  out  upon  the  exodus. 

It  is  true  also  that  Josephus  has  preserved  an  idle 
tale  that  Moses  was  given  command  of  an  Egyptian 
army  with  which  he  made  a  successful  campaign 
against  the  Ethiopians,  but  it  is  unworthy  of  credit 
and  may  be  neglected.  His  bringing  up  was  indeed 
the  reverse  of  military.  So  much  so  that  probably  far 
the  most  important  part  of  his  education  lay  in  ac- 
quiring those  arts  which  conduce  to  the  deception  of 
others,  such  deceptions  as  jugglers  have  always  prac- 
tised in  snake-charming  and  the  like,  or  in  gaining 
control  of  another's  senses  by  processes  akin  to  hyp- 
notism;—  processes  which  have  been  used  by  the 
priestly  class  and  their  familiars  from  the  dawn  of 
time.  In  especial  there  was  one  miracle  performed 


PREFACE.  13 

by  the  Magi,  on  which  not  only  they,  but  Moses  him- 
self, appear  to  have  set  great  store,  and  on  which 
Moses  seemed  always  inclined  to  fall  back,  when 
hard  pressed  to  assert  his  authority.  They  pretended 
to  make  fire  descend  onto  their  altars  by  means  of 
magical  ceremonies.1  Nevertheless,  amidst  all  these 
ancient  eastern  civilizations,  the  strongest  hold  which 
the  priests  or  sorcerers  held  over,  and  the  greatest 
influence  which  they  exercised  upon,  others,  lay  in 
their  relations  to  disease,  for  there  they  were  sup- 
posed to  be  potent.  For  example,  in  Chaldea,  diseases 
were  held  to  be  the  work  of  demons,  to  be  feared  in 
proportion  as  they  were  powerful  and  malignant, 
and  to  be  restrained  by  incantations  and  exorcisms. 
Among  these  demons  the  one,  perhaps  most  dreaded, 
was  called  Namtar,  the  genius  of  the  plague.  Moses 
was,  of  course,  thoroughly  familiar  with  all  these 
branches  of  learning,  for  the  relations  of  Egypt  were 
then  and  for  many  centuries  had  been,  intimate  with 
Mesopotamia.  Whatever  aspect  the  philosophy  may 
have,  which  Moses  taught  after  middle  life  touching 
the  theory  of  the  religion  in  which  he  believed,  Moses 
had  from  early  childhood  been  nurtured  in  these 
Mesopotamian  beliefs  and  traditions,  and  to  them  — 
or,  at  least,  toward  them  —  he  always  tended  to  re- 
vert in  moments  of  stress.  Without  bearing  this 
fundamental  premise  in  mind,  Moses  in  active  life 
can  hardly  be  understood,  for  it  was  on  this  founda- 
tion that  his  theories  of  cause  and  effect  were  based. 
1  Lenormant,  Chaldean  Magic,  226. 


14  PREFACE. 

As  M.  Lenormant  has  justly  and  truly  observed, 
go  back  as  far  as  we  will  in  Egyptian  religion,  we  find 
there,  as  a  foundation,  or  first  cause,  the  idea  of  a 
divine  unity,  —  a  single  God,  who  had  no  beginning 
and  was  to  have  no  end  of  days,  —  the  primary  cause 
of  all.1  It  is  true  that  this  idea  of  unity  was  early 
obscured  by  confounding  the  energy  with  its  mani- 
festations. Consequently  a  polytheism  was  engen- 
dered which  embraced  all  nature.  Gods  and  demons 
struggled  for  control  and  in  turn  were  struggled 
with.  In  Egypt,  in  Media,  in  Chaldea,  in  Persia, 
there  were  wise  men,  sorcerers,  and  magicians  who 
sought  to  put  this  science  into  practice,  and  among 
this  fellowship  Moses  must  always  rank  foremost. 
Before,  however,  entering  upon  the  consideration  of 
Moses,  as  a  necromancer,  as  a  scientist,  as  a  states- 
man, as  a  priest,  or  as  a  commander,  we  should  first 
glance  at  the  authorities  which  tell  his  history. 

Scholars  are  now  pretty  well  agreed  that  Moses  and 
Aaron  were  men  who  actually  lived  and  worked  prob- 
ably about  the  time  attributed  to  them  by  tradition. 
That  is  to  say,  under  the  reign  of  Ramses  II,  of  the 
Nineteenth  Egyptian  dynasty  who  reigned,  as  it  is 
computed,  from  1348  to  1281  B.C.,  and  under  whom 
the  exodus  occurred.  Nevertheless,  no  very  direct  or 
conclusive  evidence  having  as  yet  been  discovered 
touching  these  events  among  Egyptian  documents, 
we  are  obliged,  in  the  main,  to  draw  our  information 
from  the  Hebrew  record,  which,  for  the  most  part, 
1  Chaldean  Magic,  79. 


PREFACE.  15 

is  contained  in  the  Pentateuch,  or  the  first  five  books 
of  the  Bible. 

Possibly  no  historical  documents  have  ever  been 
subjected  to  a  severer  or  more  minute  criticism  than 
have  these  books  during  the  last  two  centuries.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  no  important  passage  and  perhaps 
no  paragraph  has  escaped  the  most  searching  and 
patient  analysis  by  the  acutest  and  most  highly 
trained  of  minds;  but  as  yet,  so  far  as  the  science  of 
history  is  concerned,  the  results  have  been  disappoint- 
ing. The  order  in  which  events  occurred  may  have 
been  successfully  questioned  and  the  sequence  of  the 
story  rearranged  hypothetically;  but,  in  general,  it 
has  to  be  admitted  that  the  weight  of  all  the  evidence 
obtained  from  the  monuments  of  contemporary  peo- 
ples has  been  to  confirm  the  reliability  of  the  Biblical 
narrative.  For  example,  no  one  longer  doubts  that 
Joseph  was  actually  a  Hebrew,  who  rose,  through 
merit,  to  the  highest  offices  of  state  under  an  Egyp- 
tian monarch,  and  who  conceived  and  successfully 
carried  into  execution  a  comprehensive  agrarian  policy 
which  had  the  effect  of  transferring  the  landed  estates 
of  the  great  feudal  aristocracy  to  the  crown,  and  of 
completely  changing  Egyptian  tenures.  Nor  does  any 
one  question,  at  this  day,  the  reality  of  the  power 
which  the  Biblical  writers  ascribed  to  the  Empire  of 
the  Hittites.  Under  such  conditions  the  course  of  the 
commentator  is  clear.  He  should  treat  the  Jewish 
record  as  reliable,  except  where  it  frankly  accepts  the 
miracle  as  a  demonstrated  fact,  and  even  then  re- 


16  PREFACE. 

gard  the  miracle  as  an  important  and  most  suggestive 
part  of  the  great  Jewish  epic,  which  always  has  had, 
and  always  must  have,  a  capital  influence  on  human 
thought. 

The  Pentateuch  has,  indeed,  been  demonstrated  to 
be  a  compilation  of  several  chronicles  arranged  by 
different  writers  at  different  times,  and  blended  into 
a  unity  under  different  degrees  of  pressure,  but  now, 
as  the  book  stands,  it  is  as  authentic  a  record  as  could 
be  wished  of  the  workings  of  the  Mosaic  mind  and  of 
the  minds  of  those  of  his  followers  who  supported  him 
in  his  pilgrimage,  and  who  made  so  much  of  his  task 
possible,  as  he  in  fact  accomplished. 

Moses,  himself,  but  for  the  irascibility  of  his  temper, 
might  have  lived  and  died,  contented  and  unknown, 
within  the  shadow  of  the  Egyptian  court.  The  princess 
who  befriended  him  as  a  baby  would  probably  have 
been  true  to  him  to  the  end,  in  which  case  he  would 
have  lived  wealthy,  contented,  and  happy  and  would 
have  died  overfed  and  unknown.  Destiny,  however, 
had  planned  it  otherwise. 

The  Hebrews  were  harshly  treated  after  the  death 
of  Joseph,  and  fell  into  a  quasi-bondage  in  which  they 
were  forced  to  labor,  and  this  species  of  tyranny  irri- 
tated Moses,  who  seems  to  have  been  brought  up 
under  his  mother's  influence.  At  all  events,  one  day 
Moses  chanced  to  see  an  Egyptian  beating  a  Jew, 
which  must  have  been  a  common  enough  sight,  but  a 
sight  which  revolted  him.  Whereupon  Moses,  think- 
ing himself  alone,  slew  the  Egyptian  and  hid  his  body 


PREFACE.  17 

in  the  sand.  Moses,  however,  was  not  alone.  A  day  or 
so  later  he  again  happened  to  see  two  men  fighting, 
whereupon  he  again  interfered,  enjoining  the  one  who 
was  in  the  wrong  to  desist.  Whereupon  the  man  whom 
he  checked  turned  fiercely  on  him  and  said,  "Who 
made  thee  a  prince  and  a  judge  over  us?  Intendest 
thou  to  kill  me,  as  thou  killedst  the  Egyptian?" 

When  Moses  perceived  by  this  act  of  treachery  on 
the  part  of  a  countryman,  whom  he  had  befriended, 
that  nothing  remained  to  him  but  flight,  he  started  in 
the  direction  of  southern  Arabia,  toward  what  was 
called  the  Land  of  Midian,  and  which,  at  the  moment, 
seems  to  have  lain  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Egyptian 
administrative  system,  although  it  had  once  been  one 
of  its  most  prized  metallurgical  regions.  Just  at  that 
time  it  was  occupied  by  a  race  called  the  Kenites,  who 
were  more  or  less  closely  related  to  the  Amalekites, 
who  were  Bedouins  and  who  relied  for  their  living 
upon  their  flocks,  as  the  Israelites  had  done  in  the 
time  of  Abraham.  Although  Arabia  Patrea  was  then, 
in  the  main,  a  stony  waste,  as  it  is  now,  it  was  not 
quite  a  desert.  It  was  crossed  by  trade  routes  in  many 
directions  along  which  merchants  travelled  to  Egypt, 
as  is  described  in  the  story  of  Joseph,  whose  brethren 
seized  him  in  Dothan,  and  as  they  sat  by  the  side  of 
the  pit  in  which  they  had  thrown  him,  they  saw  a 
company  of  Ishmaelites  who  came  from  Gilead  and 
who  journeyed  straight  down  from  Damascus  to 
Gilead  and  from  thence  to  Hebron,  along  the  old 
caravan  road,  toward  Egypt,  with  camels  bearing 


18  PREFACE. 

spices  and  myrrh,  as  had  been  their  custom  since  long 
beyond  human  tradition,  and  which  had  been  the 
road  along  which  Abraham  had  travelled  before  them, 
and  which  was  still  watered  by  his  wells.  This  was  the 
famous  track  from  Beersheba  to  Hebron,  where  Hagar 
was  abandoned  with  her  baby  Ishmael,  and  if  the 
experiences  of  Hagar  do  not  prove  that  the  wilderness 
of  Shur  was  altogether  impracticable  for  women  and 
children  it  does  at  least  show  that  for  a  mixed  multi- 
tude without  trustworthy  guides  or  reliable  sources 
of  supply,  the  country  was  not  one  to  be  lightly 
attempted. 

It  was  into  a  region  similar  to  this,  only  somewhat 
further  to  the  south,  that  Moses  penetrated  after  his 
homicide,  travelling  alone  and  as  an  unknown  ad- 
venturer, dressed  like  an  Egyptian,  and  having  noth- 
ing of  the  nomad  about  him  in  his  looks.  As  Moses 
approached  Sinai,  the  country  grew  wilder  and  more 
lonely,  and  Moses  one  day  sat  himself  down,  by  the 
side  of  a  well  whither  shepherds  were  wont  to  drive 
their  flocks  to  water.  For  shepherds  came  there,  and 
also  shepherdesses;  among  others  were  the  seven 
daughters  of  Jethro,  the  priest  of  Midian,  who  came 
to  water  their  father's  flocks.  But  the  shepherds 
drove  them  away  and  took  the  water  for  themselves. 
Whereupon  Moses  defended  the  girls  and  drew  water 
for  them  and  watered  then*  flocks.  This  naturally 
pleased  the  young  women,  and  they  took  Moses  home 
with  them  to  their  father's  tent,  as  Bedouins  still 
would  do.  And  when  they  came  to  their  father,  he 


PREFACE.  19 

asked  how  it  chanced  that  they  came  home  so  early 
that  day.  "And  they  said,  an  Egyptian  delivered  us 
out  of  the  hand  of  the  shepherds,  and  also  drew  water 
enough  for  us,  and  watered  the  flock."  And  Jethro 
said,  "Where  is  he?  Why  is  it  that  ye  have  left  the 
man?  Call  him  that  he  may  eat  bread/' 

"And  Moses  was  content  to  dwell  with"  Jethro, 
who  made  him  his  chief  shepherd  and  gave  him 
Zipporah,  his  daughter.  And  she  bore  him  a  son. 
Seemingly,  time  passed  rapidly  and  happily  in  this 
peaceful,  pastoral  life,  which,  according  to  the  tra- 
dition preserved  by  Saint  Stephen,  lasted  forty  years, 
but  be  the  time  long  or  short,  it  is  clear  that  Moses 
loved  and  respected  Jethro  and  was  in  return  valued 
by  him.  Nor  could  anything  have  been  more  natural, 
for  Moses  was  a  man  who  made  a  deep  impression  at 
first  sight  —  an  impression  which  time  strengthened. 
Intellectually  he  must  have  been  at  least  as  notable 
as  in  personal  appearance,  for  his  education  at  Helio- 
polis  set  him  apart  from  men  whom  Jethro  would 
have  been  apt  to  meet  in  his  nomad  life.  But  if 
Moses  had  strong  attractions  for  Jethro,  Jethro  drew 
Moses  toward  himself  at  least  as  strongly  in  the 
position  in  which  Moses  then  stood.  Jethro,  though 
a  child  of  the  desert,  was  the  chief  of  a  tribe  or  at 
least  of  a  family,  a  man  used  to  command,  and  to 
administer  the  nomad  law;  for  Jethro  was  the  head 
of  the  Kenites,  who  were  akin  to  the  Amalekites, 
with  whom  the  Israelites  were  destined  to  wage  mortal 
war.  And  for  Moses  this  was  a  most  important 


20  PREFACE. 

connection,  for  Moses  after  his  exile  never  permitted 
his  relations  with  his  own  people  in  Egypt  to  lapse. 
The  possibility  of  a  Jewish  revolt,  of  which  his  own 
banishment  was  a  precursor,  was  constantly  in  his 
mind.  To  Moses  a  Jewish  exodus  from  Egypt  was 
always  imminent.  For  centuries  it  had  been  a  dream 
of  the  Jews.  Indeed  it  was  an  article  of  faith  with 
them.  Joseph,  as  he  sank  in  death,  had  called  his 
descendants  about  him  and  made  them  solemnly 
swear  to  "carry  his  bones  hence."  And  to  that  end 
Joseph  had  caused  his  body  to  be  embalmed  and  put 
in  a  coffin  that  all  might  be  ready  when  the  day  came. 
Moses  knew  the  tradition  and  felt  himself  bound  by 
the  oath  and  waited  in  Midian  with  confidence  until 
the  moment  of  performance  should  come.  Presently 
it  did  come.  Very  probably  before  he  either  expected 
or  could  have  wished  it,  and  actually,  as  almost  his 
first  act  of  leadership,  Moses  did  carry  the  bones  of 
Joseph  with  him  when  he  crossed  the  Red  Sea.  Moses 
held  the  tradition  to  be  a  certainty.  He  never  con- 
ceived it  to  be  a  matter  of  possible  doubt,  nor  prob- 
ably was  it  so.  There  was  in  no  one's  mind  a  question 
touching  Joseph's  promise  nor  about  his  expectation 
of  its  fulfilment.  What  Moses  did  is  related  in  Exodus 
xiii,  19:  "And  Moses  took  the  bones  of  Joseph  with 
him;  for  he  had  straitly  sworn  the  children  of  Israel, 
saying,  God  will  surely  visit  you;  and  ye  shall  carry 
up  my  bones  away  hence  with  you." 

In  fine,  Moses,  in  the  solitude  of  the  Arabian  wil- 
derness, in  his  wanderings  as  the  shepherd  of  Jethro, 


PREFACE.  21 

came  to  believe  that  his  destiny  was  linked  with  that 
of  his  countrymen  in  a  revolution  which  was  certain 
to  occur  before  they  could  accomplish  the  promise  of 
Joseph  and  escape  from  Egypt  under  the  guidance  of 
the  god  who  had  befriended  and  protected  him.  More- 
over, Moses  was  by  no  means  exclusively  a  religious 
enthusiast.  He  was  also  a  scientific  man,  after  the 
ideas  of  that  age.  Moses  had  a  high  degree  of  educa- 
tion and  he  was  familiar  with  the  Egyptian  and 
Chaldean  theory  of  a  great  and  omnipotent  prime 
motor,  who  had  had  no  beginning  and  should  have  no 
end.  He  was  also  aware  that  this  theory  was  obscured 
by  the  intrusion  into  men's  minds  of  a  multitude  of 
lesser  causes,  in  the  shape  of  gods  and  demons,  who 
mixed  themselves  in  earthly  affairs  and  on  whose 
sympathy  or  malevolence  the  weal  or  woe  of  human 
life  hinged.  Pondering  deeply  on  these  things  as  he 
roamed,  he  persuaded  himself  that  he  had  solved  the 
riddle  of  the  universe,  by  identifying  the  great  first 
cause  of  all  with  the  deity  who  had  been  known  to  his 
ancestors,  whose  normal  home  was  in  the  promised 
land  of  Canaan,  and  who,  beside  being  all-powerful, 
was  also  a  moral  being  whose  service  must  tend  toward 
the  welfare  of  mankind.  For  Moses  was  by  tempera- 
ment a  moralist  in  whom  such  abominations  as  those 
practised  in  the  worship  of  Moloch  created  horror. 
He  knew  that  the  god  of  Abraham  would  tolerate  no 
such  wickedness  as  this,  because  of  the  fate  of  Sodom 
on  much  less  provocation,  and  he  believed  that  were 
he  to  lead  the  Israelites,  as  he  might  lead  them,  he 


22  PREFACE. 

could  propitiate  such  a  deity,  could  he  but  by  an 
initial  success  induce  his  congregation  to  obey  the 
commands  of  a  god  strong  enough  to  reward  them  for 
leading  a  life  which  should  be  acceptable  to  him.  All 
depended,  therefore,  should  the  opportunity  of  leader- 
ship come  to  him,  on  his  being  able,  in  the  first  place, 
to  satisfy  himself  that  the  god  who  presented  himself 
to  him  was  verily  the  god  of  Abraham,  who  burned 
Sodom,  and  not  some  demon,  whose  object  was  to  vex 
mankind:  and,  in  the  second  place,  assuming  that  he 
himself  were  convinced  of  the  identity  of  the  god,  that 
he  could  convince  his  countrymen  of  the  fact,  and  also 
of  the  absolute  necessity  of  obedience  to  the  moral 
law  which  he  should  declare,  since  without  absolute 
obedience,  they  would  certainly  merit,  and  probably 
suffer,  such  a  fate  as  befell  the  inhabitants  of  Sodom, 
under  the  very  eyes  of  Abraham,  and  in  spite  of  his 
prayers  for  mercy. 

There  was  one  other  apprehension  which  may  have 
troubled,  and  probably  did  trouble,  Moses.  The  god 
of  the  primitive  man,  and  certainly  of  the  Bedouin,  is 
usually  a  local  deity  whose  power  and  whose  activity 
is  limited  to  some  particular  region,  as,  for  instance,  a 
mountain  or  a  plain.  Thus  the  god  of  Abraham  might 
have  inhabited  and  absolutely  ruled  the  plain  of 
Mamre  and  been  impotent  elsewhere.  But  this,  had 
Moses  for  a  moment  harbored  such  a  notion,  would 
have  been  dispelled  when  he  thought  of  Joseph. 
Joseph,  when  his  brethren  threw  him  into  the  pit, 
must  have  been  under  the  guardianship  of  the  god  of 


PREFACE.  23 

his  fathers,  and  when  he  was  drawn  out,  and  sold  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  the  slave-trade,  he  was  bought 
by  Potiphar,  the  captain  of  the  guard.  "And  the 
Lord  was  with  Joseph  and  he  was  a  prosperous  man." 
Thenceforward,  Joseph  had  a  wonderful  career.  He 
received  in  a  dream  a  revelation  of  what  the  weather 
was  to  be  for  seven  years  to  come.  And  by  this  dream 
he  was  able  to  formulate  a  policy  for  establishing  pub- 
lic graineries  like  those  which  were  maintained  in 
Babylon,  and  by  means  of  these  graineries,  ably  ad- 
ministered, the  crown  was  enabled  to  acquire  the 
estates  of  the  great  feudatories,  and  thus  the  whole 
social  system  of  Egypt  was  changed.  And  Joseph, 
from  being  a  poor  waif,  cast  away  by  his  brethren  in 
the  wilderness,  became  the  foremost  man  in  Egypt 
and  the  means  of  settling  his  compatriots  in  the 
province  of  Gotham,  where  they  still  lived  when 
Moses  fled  from  Egypt.  Such  facts  had  made  a  pro- 
found impression  upon  the  mind  of  Moses,  who  very 
reasonably  looked  upon  Joseph  as  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  men  who  had  ever  lived,  and  one  who 
could  not  have  succeeded  as  he  succeeded,  without 
the  divine  interposition.  But  if  the  god  who  did  these 
things  could  work  such  miracles  in  Egypt,  his  power 
was  not  confined  by  local  boundaries,  and  his  power 
could  be  trusted  in  the  desert  as  safely  as  it  could  be 
on  the  plain  of  Mamre  or  elsewhere.  The  burning  of 
Sodom  was  a  miracle  equally  in  point  to  prove  the 
stern  morality  of  the  god.  And  that  also,  was  a  fact, 
as  incontestable,  to  the  mind  of  Moses,  as  was  the 


24  PREFACE. 

rising  of  the  sun  upon  the  morning  of  each  day.  He 
knew,  as  we  know  of  the  battle  of  Great  Meadows, 
that  one  day  his  ancestor  Abraham,  when  sitting  in 
the  door  of  his  tent  toward  noon,  "in  the  plain  of 
Mamre,"  at  a  spot  not  far  from  Hebron  and  perfectly 
familiar  to  every  traveller  along  the  old  caravan  road 
hither,  on  looking  up  observed  three  men  standing 
before  him,  one  of  whom  he  recognized  as  the  "Lord." 
Then  it  dawned  on  Abraham  that  the  "Lord"  had 
not  come  without  a  purpose,  but  had  dropped  in  for 
dinner,  and  Abraham  ran  to  meet  them,  "and  bowed 
himself  toward  the  ground."  And  he  said,  "Let  a 
little  water  be  fetched,  and  wash  your  feet,  and  rest 
yourselves  under  the  tree:  And  I  will  fetch  a  morsel 
of  bread,  and  comfort  ye  your  hearts;  after  that  you 
shall  pass  on."  "And  Abraham  ran  unto  the  herd, 
and  fetcht  a  calf  tender  and  good,  and  gave  it  unto  a 
young  man;  and  he  hasted  to  dress  it.  And  he  took 
butter,  and  milk,  and  the  calf  which  he  had  dressed, 
and  set  it  before  them;  and  he  stood  by  them  under 
the  tree,  and  they  did  eat."  Meanwhile,  Abraham 
asked  no  questions,  but  waited  until  the  object  of  the 
visit  should  be  disclosed.  In  due  time  he  succeeded  in 
his  purpose.  "And  they  said  unto  him,  Where  is 
Sarah  thy  wife?  And  he  said,  Behold,  in  the  tent. 
And  he  [the  Lord]  said,  .  .  .  Sarah  thy  wife  shall  have 
a  son.  .  .  .  Now  Abraham  and  Sarah  were  old,  and 
well  stricken  in  age."  At  this  time  Abraham  was 
about  one  hundred  years  old,  according  to  the  tra- 
dition, and  Sarah  was  proportionately  amused,  and 


PREFACE.  25 

"laughed  within  herself."  This  mirth  vexed  "the 
Lord,"  who  did  not  treat  his  words  as  a  joke,  but 
asked,  "Is  anything  too  hard  for  the  Lord?"  Then 
Sarah  took  refuge  in  a  lie,  and  denied  that  she  had 
laughed.  But  the  lie  helped  her  not  at  all,  for  the 
Lord  insisted,  "Nay,  but  thou  didst  laugh."  And  this 
incident  broke  up  the  party.  The  men  rose  and 
"looked  toward  Sodom":  and  Abraham  strolled  with 
them,  to  show  them  the  way.  And  then  the  "Lord" 
debated  with  himself  whether  to  make  a  confidant  of 
Abraham  touching  his  resolution  to  destroy  Sodom 
utterly.  And  finally  he  decided  that  he  would,  "be- 
cause the  cry  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  is  great  and 
because  their  sin  is  very  grievous."  Whereupon 
Abraham  intervened,  and  an  argument  ensued,  and 
at  length  God  admitted  that  he  had  been  too  hasty 
and  promised  to  think  the  matter  over.  And  finally, 
when  "the  Lord"  had  reduced  the  number  of  right- 
eous for  whom  the  city  should  be  saved  to  ten,  Abra- 
ham allowed  him  to  go  "  his  way  .  .  .  and  Abraham 
returned  to  his  place." 

In  the  evening  of  the  same  day  two  angels  came  to 
Sodom,  who  met  Lot  at  the  gate,  and  Lot  took  them 
to  his  house  and  made  them  a  feast  and  they  did  eat. 
Then  it  happened  that  the  mob  surrounded  Lot's 
house  and  demanded  that  the  strangers  should  be 
delivered  up  to  them.  But  Lot  successfully  defended 
them.  And  in  the  morning  the  angels  warned  Lot  to 
escape,  but  Lot  hesitated,  though  finally  he  did  es- 
cape to  Zoar. 


26  PREFACE. 

"Then  the  Lord  rained  upon  Sodom  and  upon 
Gomorrah  brimstone  and  fire  from  the  Lord  out  of 
heaven." 

"And  Abraham  gat  up  early  in  the  morning  to  the 
place  where  he  stood  before  the  Lord: 

"And  he  looked  toward  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
and  toward  all  the  land  of  the  plain,  and  beheld,  and, 
lo,  the  smoke  of  the  country  went  up  as  the  smoke  of 
a  furnace." 

We  must  always  remember,  in  trying  to  reconstruct 
the  past,  that  these  traditions  were  not  matters  of 
possible  doubt  to  Moses,  or  indeed  to  any  Israelite. 
They  were  as  well  established  facts  to  them  as  would 
be  the  record  of  volcanic  eruptions  now.  Therefore  it 
would  not  have  astonished  Moses  more  that  the  Lord 
should  meet  him  on  the  slope  of  Horeb,  than  that  the 
Lord  should  have  met  his  ancestor  Abraham  on  the 
plain  of  Mamre.  Moses'  doubts  and  perplexities  lay 
in  another  direction.  Moses  did  not  question,  as  did 
his  great  ancestress,  that  his  god  could  do  all  he 
promised,  if  he  had  the  will.  His  anxiety  lay  in  his 
doubt  as  to  God's  steadiness  of  purpose  supposing  he 
promised;  and  this  doubt  was  increased  by  his  lack 
of  confidence  in  his  own  countrymen.  The  god  of 
Abraham  was  a  requiring  deity  with  a  high  moral 
standard,  and  the  Hebrews  were  at  least  in  part  some- 
what akin  to  a  horde  of  semi-barbarous  nomads,  much 
more  likely  to  fall  into  offences  resembling  those  of 
Sodom  than  to  render  obedience  to  a  code  which 
would  strictly  conform  to  the  requirements  which 


PREFACE.  27 

alone  would  ensure  Moses  support,  supposing  he 
accepted  a  task  which,  after  all,  without  divine  aid, 
might  prove  to  be  impossible  to  perform. 

When  the  proposition  which  Moses  seems,  more  or 
less  confidently,  to  have  expected  to  be  made  to  him 
by  the  Lord,  came,  it  came  very  suddenly  and  very 
emphatically. 

"  Now  Moses  kept  the  flock  of  Jethro  his  father-in- 
law,  the  priest  of  Midian:  and  he  led  the  flock  to  the 
backside  of  the  desert,  and  came  to  the  mountain  of 
God,  even  to  Horeb. 

"And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  unto  him  in 
a  flame  of  fire  out  of  the  midst  of  a  bush :  and  he  looked, 
and,  behold,  the  bush  burned  with  fire,  and  the  bush 
was  not  consumed." 

And  Moses,  not,  apparently,  very  much  excited, 
said,  "I  will  now  turn  aside,  and  see  this  great  sight." 
But  "God  called  unto  him  out  of  the  midst  of  the 
bush,  and  said,  Moses,  Moses.  And  he  said,  Here  am 
I."  Then  the  voice  commanded  him  to  put  off  his 
shoes  from  off  his  feet,  for  the  place  he  stood  on  was 
holy  ground. 

"Moreover,"  said  the  voice,  "I  am  the  God  of  thy 
father,  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac,  and 
the  God  of  Jacob.  And  Moses  hid  his  face;  for  he  was 
afraid  to  look  upon  God. 

"And  the  Lord  said,  I  have  surely  seen  the  affliction 
of  my  people  .  .  .  and  have  heard  their  cry  by  reason 
of  their  taskmasters;  for  I  know  their  sorrows. 

"And  I  am  come  down  to  deliver  them  out  of  the 


28  PREFACE. 

hand  of  the  Egyptians,  and  to  bring  them  up  out  of 
that  land  unto  a  good  land  and  a  large,  unto  a  land 
flowing  with  milk  and  honey;  unto  the  place  of  the 
Canaanites,  and  the  Hittites,  and  the  Amorites,  and 
the  Perizzites.  .  .  . 

"Come  now,  therefore,  and  I  will  send  thee  unto 
Pharaoh,  that  thou  mayest  bring  forth  my  people,  the 
children  of  Israel,  out  of  Egypt. 

"And  Moses  said  unto  God,  Who  am  I,  that  I 
should  go  unto  Pharaoh,  and  that  I  should  bring 
forth  the  children  of  Israel  out  of  Egypt?  .  .  .  And 
Moses  said  unto  God,  Behold,  when  I  am  come  unto 
the  children  of  Israel,  and  shall  say  unto  them,  The 
God  of  your  fathers  hath  sent  me  unto  you;  and  they 
shall  say  to  me,  What  is  his  name?  what  shall  I  say 
unto  them? 

"And  God  said  unto  Moses,  I  am  That  I  Am;  and 
he  said,  Thus  shalt  thou  say  unto  the  children  of 
Israel,  I  Am  hath  sent  me  unto  you. 

"And  God  said,  moreover,  unto  Moses,  Thus  shalt 
thou  say  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  The  Lord  God  of 
your  fathers,  the  God  of  Abraham,  the  God  of  Isaac, 
and  the  God  of  Jacob,  hath  sent  me  unto  you:  this  is 
my  name  forever,  and  this  is  my  memorial  unto  all 
generations." 

Then  the  denizen  of  the  bush  renewed  his  instruc- 
tions and  his  promises,  assuring  Moses  that  he  would 
bring  him  and  his  following  out  of  the  land  of  afflic- 
tion of  Egypt  and  into  the  land  of  the  Canaanites, 
and  the  Hittites,  and  the  Amorites,  and  others,  unto 


PREFACE.  29 

a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  In  a  word  to 
Palestine.  And  he  insisted  to  Moses  that  he  should 
gain  an  entrance  to  Pharaoh,  and  that  he  should  tell 
him  that  "the  Lord  God  of  the  Hebrews  hath  met 
with  us:  and  now  let  us  go,  we  beseech  thee,  three 
days'  journey  into  the  wilderness,  that  we  may  sacri- 
fice to  the  Lord  our  God." 

Also  God  did  not  pretend  to  Moses  that  the  King 
of  Egypt  would  forthwith  let  them  go;  whereupon  he 
would  work  his  wonders  in  Egypt  and  after  that 
Pharaoh  would  let  them  go. 

Moreover,  he  promised,  as  an  inducement  to  their 
avarice,  that  they  should  not  go  empty  away,  for  that 
the  Lord  God  would  give  the  Hebrews  favor  in  the  sight 
of  the  Egyptians,  "so  that  every  woman  should  borrow 
of  her  neighbor,  and  of  her  that  sojourneth  in  her 
house,  jewels  of  silver,  jewels  of  gold,  and  raiment," 
and  that  they  should  spoil  the  Egyptians.  But  all  this 
time  God  did  not  disclose  his  name;  so  Moses  tried 
another  way  about.  If  he  would  not  tell  his  name  he 
might  at  least  enable  Moses  to  work  some  wonder 
which  should  bring  conviction  to  those  who  saw  it, 
even  if  the  god  remained  nameless.  For  Moses  ap- 
preciated the  difficulty  of  the  mission  suggested  to 
him.  How  was  he,  a  stranger  in  Egypt,  to  gain  the 
confidence  of  that  mixed  and  helpless  multitude, 
whom  he  was  trying  to  persuade  to  trust  to  his  guid- 
ance in  so  apparently  desperate  an  enterprise  as 
crossing  a  broad  and  waterless  waste,  in  the  face  of  a 
well-armed  and  vigorous  foe.  Moses  apprehended 


30  PREFACE. 

that  there  was  but  one  way  in  which  he  could  by 
possibility  succeed.  He  might  prevail  by  convincing 
the  Israelites  that  he  was  commissioned  by  the  one 
deity  whom  they  knew,  who  was  likely  to  have  both 
the  will  and  the  power  to  aid  them,  and  that  was  the 
god  who  had  visited  Abraham  on  the  plain  of  Mamre, 
who  had  destroyed  Sodom  for  its  iniquity,  and  who 
had  helped  Joseph  to  become  the  ruler  of  Egypt. 
Joseph  above  all  was  the  man  who  had  made  to  his 
descendants  that  solemn  promise  on  whose  faith 
Moses  was,  at  that  very  moment,  basing  his  hopes  of 
deliverance;  for  Joseph  had  assured  the  Israelites  hi 
the  most  solemn  manner  that  the  god  who  had  aided 
him  would  surely  visit  them,  and  that  they  should 
carry  his  bones  away  with  them  to  the  land  he  prom- 
ised. That  land  was  the  land  to  which  Moses  wished 
to  guide  them.  Now  Moses  was  fully  determined  to 
attempt  no  such  project  as  this  unless  the  being  who 
spoke  from  the  bush  would  first  prove  to  him,  Moses, 
that  he  was  the  god  he  purported  to  be,  and  should 
beside  give  Moses  credentials  which  should  be  con- 
vincing, by  which  Moses  could  prove  to  the  Jews  in 
Egypt  that  he  was  no  impostor  himself,  nor  had  he 
been  deceived  by  a  demon.  Therefore  Moses  went  on 
objecting  as  strongly  as  at  first: 

"And  Moses  answered  and  said,  But  behold  they 
will  not  believe  me,  nor  hearken  to  my  voice;  for  they 
will  say,  the  Lord  hath  not  appeared  unto  thee." 

Then  the  being  in  the  bush  proceeded  to  submit  his 
method  of  proof,  which  was  of  a  truth  feeble,  and 


PREFACE.  31 

which  Moses  rejected  as  feeble.  A  form  of  proof 
which  never  fully  convinced  him,  and  which,  in  his 
judgment  could  not  be  expected  to  convince  others, 
especially  men  so  educated  and  intelligent  as  the 
Egyptians.  For  the  Lord  had  nothing  better  to  sug- 
gest than  the  ancient  trick  of  the  snake-charmer,  and 
even  the  possessor  of  the  voice  seems  implicitly  to 
have  admitted  that  this  could  hardly  be  advanced  as 
a  convincing  miracle.  So  the  Lord  proposed  two 
other  tests:  the  first  was  that  Moses  should  have  his 
hand  smitten  with  leprous  sores  and  restored  imme- 
diately by  hiding  it  from  sight  in  "his  bosom."  And  in 
the  event  that  this  test  left  his  audience  still  sceptical, 
he  was  to  dip  Nile  water  out  of  the  river,  and  turn  it 
into  blood  on  land. 

Moses  at  all  these  three  proposals  remained  cold  as 
before.  And  with  good  reason,  for  Moses  had  been 
educated  as  a  priest  in  Egypt,  and  he  knew  that 
Egyptian  "wise  men"  could  do  as  well,  and  even 
better,  if  it  came  to  a  magical  competition  before 
Pharaoh.  And  Moses  had  evidently  no  relish  for  a 
contest  in  the  presence  of  his  countrymen  as  to  the 
relative  quality  of  his  magic.  Therefore,  he  objected 
once  more  on  another  ground:  "I  am  not  eloquent, 
neither  heretofore  nor  since  thou  hast  spoken  unto 
thy  servant:  but  I  am  slow  of  speech,  and  of  a  slow 
tongue."  This  continued  hesitancy  put  the  Lord  out 
of  patience;  who  retorted  sharply,  "Who  hath  made 
man's  mouth?  or  who  maketh  the  dumb,  or  deaf,  or 
the  seeing,  or  the  blind?  Have  not  I  the  Lord? 


32  PREFACE. 

"Now  therefore  go,  and  I  will  be  with  thy  mouth, 
and  teach  thee  what  thou  shalt  say." 

Then  Moses  made  his  last  effort.  "O  my  Lord, 
send,  I  pray  thee,  by  the  hand  of  him  whom  thou 
wilt  send."  Which  was  another  way  of  saying,  Send 
whom  you  please,  but  leave  me  to  tend  Jethro's  flock 
in  Midian. 

"And  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against 
Moses;  and  he  said,  Is  not  Aaron  the  Levite  thy 
brother?  I  know  that  he  can  speak  well.  And  also, 
behold,  he  cometh  forth  to  meet  thee;  and  when  he 
seeth  thee,  he  will  be  glad  in  his  heart. 

"And  he  shall  be,  ...  to  thee  instead  of  a  mouth, 
and  thou  shalt  be  to  him  instead  of  God." 

Then  Moses,  not  seeming  to  care  very  much  what 
Aaron  might  think  about  the  matter,  went  to  Jethro, 
and  related  what  had  happened  to  him  on  the  moun- 
tain, and  asked  for  leave  to  go  home  to  Egypt,  and  see 
how  matters  stood  there.  And  Jethro  listened,  and 
seems  to  have  thought  the  experiment  worth  trying, 
for  he  answered,  "Go  in  peace." 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,"  —  but  where  is 
not  stated,  probably  in  Midian,  —  "  Go,  return  into 
Egypt,"  which  you  may  do  safely,  for  all  the  men  are 
dead  which  sought  thy  life. 

"And  Moses  took  his  wife  and  his  sons,  and  set 
them  upon  an  ass,  and  he  returned  to  the  land  of 
Egypt.  And  Moses  took  the  rod  of  God  in  his  hand." 

It  was  after  this,  apparently,  that  Aaron  travelled 
to  meet  Moses  in  Midian,  and  Moses  told  Aaron  what 


PREFACE.  33 

had  occurred,  and  performed  his  tests,  and,  seemingly, 
convinced  him;  for  then  Moses  and  Aaron  went  to- 
gether into  Egypt  and  called  the  elders  of  the  children 
of  Israel  together,  "and  did  the  signs  in  the  sight  of 
the  people.  And  the  people  believed:  and  .  .  .  bowed 
their  heads  and  worshipped."  Meanwhile  God  had 
not,  as  yet,  revealed  his  name.  But  as  presently  mat- 
ters came  to  a  crisis  between  Moses  and  Pharaoh,  he 
did  so.  He  said  to  Moses,  "I  am  the  Lord: 

"I  appeared  unto  Abraham,  unto  Isaac,  and  unto 
Jacob,  by  the  name  of  God  Almighty;  but  by  my 
name  Jehovah  was  I  not  known  to  them.  .  .  . 

"Wherefore  say  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  I  am 
the  Lord.  .  .  .  And  I  will  bring  you  in  unto  the  land, 
concerning  the  which  I  did  swear  to  give  it  to  Abra- 
ham, to  Isaac,  and  to  Jacob;  and  I  will  give  it  you 
for  an  heritage:  I  am  the  Lord. 

"And  Moses  spake  so  unto  the  children  of  Israel: 
but  they  hearkened  not  unto  Moses,  for  anguish  of 
spirit,  and  for  cruel  bondage.  .  .  . 

"And  Moses  spake  before  the  Lord,  saying,  Behold 
the  children  of  Israel  have  not  hearkened  unto  me; 
how  then  shall  Pharaoh  hear  me?"  And  from  this 
form  of  complaint  against  his  countrymen  until  his 
death  Moses  never  ceased. 

Certain  modern  critics  have  persuaded  themselves 
to  reject  this  whole  Biblical  narrative  as  the  product 
of  a  later  age  and  of  a  maturer  civilization,  contend- 
ing that  it  would  be  childish  to  attribute  the  reason- 
ing of  the  Pentateuch  to  primitive  Bedouins  like  the 


34  PREFACE. 

patriarchs  or  like  the  Jews  who  followed  Moses  into 
the  desert.  Setting  aside  at  once  the  philological  dis- 
cussion as  to  whether  the  language  of  the  Pentateuch 
could  have  been  used  by  Moses,  and  admitting  for  the 
sake  of  argument  that  Moses  did  not  either  himself 
write,  or  dictate  to  another,  any  part  of  the  documents 
in  question,  it  would  seem  that  the  application  of  a 
little  common  sense  would  show  pretty  conclusively 
that  Moses  throughout  his  whole  administrative  life 
acted  upon  a  single  scientific  theory  of  the  application 
of  a  supreme  energy  to  the  affairs  of  life,  and  upon  the 
belief  that  he  had  discovered  what  that  energy  was 
and  understood  how  to  control  it. 

His  syllogism  amounted  to  this: 

Facts,  which  are  admitted  by  all  Hebrews,  prove 
that  the  single  dominant  power  in  the  world  is  the 
being  who  revealed  himself  to  our  ancestors,  and  who, 
in  particular,  guided  Joseph  into  Egypt,  protected 
him  there,  and  raised  him  to  an  eminence  never  before 
or  since  reached  by  a  Jew.  It  can  also  be  proved,  by 
incontrovertible  facts,  that  this  being  is  a  moral  being, 
who  can  be  placated  by  obedience  and  by  attaining 
to  a  certain  moral  standard  in  life,  and  by  no  other 
means.  That  this  standard  has  been  disclosed  to  me, 
I  can  prove  to  you  by  sundry  miraculous  signs.  There- 
fore, be  obedient  and  obey  the  law  which  I  shall  pro- 
mulgate "that  ye  may  prosper  in  all  that  ye  do." 

Indeed,  the  philosophy  of  Moses  was  of  the  sternly 
practical  kind,  resembling  that  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 
He  did  not  promise  his  people,  as  did  the  Egyptians, 


PREFACE.  35 

felicity  in  a  future  life.  He  confined  himself  to  pros-  . 
perity  in  this  world.  And  to  succeed  in  his  end  he  set 
an  attainable  standard.  A  standard  no  higher  cer- 
tainly than  that  accepted  by  the  Egyptians,  as  it  is 
set  forth  hi  the  125th  chapter  of  the  Book  of  the  Dead, 
a  standard  to  which  the  soul  of  any  dead  man  had  to 
attain  before  he  could  be  admitted  into  Paradise.  Nor 
did  Moses,  as  Dr.  Budde  among  others  assumes,  have 
to  deal  with  a  tribe  of  fierce  and  barbarous  Bedouins, 
like  the  Amalekites,  to  whom  indeed  the  Hebrews 
were  antagonistic  and  with  whom  they  waged  in- 
cessant war. 

The  Jews,  for  the  most  part,  differed  widely  from 
such  barbarians.  They  had  become  sedentary  at  the 
time  of  the  exodus,  whatever  they  may  have  been 
when  Abraham  migrated  from  Babylon.  They  were 
accustomed  in  Egypt  to  living  in  houses,  they  culti- 
vated and  cooked  the  cereals,  and  they  fed  on  vege- 
tables and  bread.  They  did  not  live  on  flesh  and  milk 
as  do  the  Bedouins;  and,  indeed,  the  chief  difficulty 
Moses  encountered  in  the  exodus  was  the  ignorance 
of  his  followers  of  the  habits  of  desert  life,  and  their 
dislike  of  desert  fare.  They  were  forever  pining  for 
the  delights  of  civilization.  "Would  to  God  we  had 
died  by  the  hand  of  the  Lord  in  the  land  of  Egypt, 
when  we  eat  by  the  flesh-pots,  and  when  we  did  eat 
bread  to  the  full!  for  ye  have  brought  us  forth  into 
this  wilderness,  to  kill  this  whole  assembly  with 
hunger."1 

1  Ex.  xvi,  3. 


36  PREFACE. 

"  We  remember  the  fish,  which  we  did  eat  in  Egypt 
freely;  the  cucumbers,  and  the  melons,  and  the  leeks, 
and  the  onions,  and  the  garlick."  These  were  the 
wants  of  sedentary  and  of  civilized  folk,  not  of  bar- 
barous nomads  who  are  content  with  goat's  flesh  and 
milk.  And  so  it  was  with  their  morality  and  their 
conceptions  of  law.  Moses  was,  indeed,  a  highly  civi- 
lized and  highly  educated  man.  No  one  would  prob- 
ably pretend  that  Moses  represented  the  average  Jew 
of  the  exodus,  but  Moses  understood  his  audience 
reasonably  well,  and  would  not  have  risked  the  suc- 
cess of  his  whole  experiment  by  preaching  to  them  a 
doctrine  which  was  altogether  beyond  their  under- 
standing. If  he  told  them  that  the  favor  of  God  could 
only  be  gained  by  obeying  the  laws  he  taught,  it  was 
because  he  thought  such  an  appeal  would  be  effective 
with  a  majority  of  them. 

Dr.  Budde,  who  is  a  good  example  of  the  modern 
hypercritical  school,  takes  very  nearly  the  opposite 
ground.  His  theory  is  that  Moses  was  in  search  of  a 
war  god,  and  that  he  discovered  such  a  god,  in  the 
god  of  the  Bedouin  tribe  of  the  Kenites  whose  ac- 
quaintance he  first  made  when  dwelling  with  his 
father-in-law  Jethro  at  Sinai.  The  morality  of  such 
a  god  he  insists  coincided  with  the  morality  which 
Moses  may  have  at  times  countenanced,  but  which 
was  quite  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the  decalogue. 

Doubtless  this  is,  in  a  degree,  true.  The  religion  of 
the  pure  Bedouin  was  very  often  crude  and  shocking, 
not  to  say  disgusting.  But  to  argue  thus  is  to  ignore 


PREFACE.  37 

the  fact  that  all  Bedouins  did  not,  in  the  age  of  Moses, 
stand  on  the  same  intellectual  or  moral  level,  and  it 
is  also  to  ignore  the  gap  that  separated  Moses  and  his 
congregation  intellectually  and  morally  from  such 
Bedouins  as  the  Amalekites. 

Dr.  Budde,  in  his  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,  in- 
sists that  the  Kenite  god,  Jehovah,  demanded  "The 
sacred  ban  by  which  conquered  cities  with  all  their 
living  beings  were  devoted  to  destruction,  the  slaughter 
of  human  beings  at  sacred  spots,  animal  sacrifices  at 
which  the  entire  animal,  wholly  or  half  raw,  was  de- 
voured, without  leaving  a  remnant,  between  sunset 
and  sunrise,  —  these  phenomena  and  many  others  of 
the  same  kind  harmonise  but  ill  with  an  aspiring 
ethical  religion." 

He  also  goes  on  to  say:  "We  are  further  referred 
to  the  legislation  of  Moses,  .  .  .  comprising  civil  and 
criminal,  ceremonial  and  ecclesiastical,  moral  and 
social  law  in  varying  compass.  This  legislation,  how- 
ever, cannot  have  come  from  Moses.  .  .  .  Such  legis- 
lation can  only  have  arisen  after  Israel  had  lived  a 
long  time  in  the  new  home." 

To  take  these  arguments  in  order,  —  for  they  must 
be  so  dealt  with  to  develop  any  reasonable  theory  of 
the  Mosaic  philosophy,  —  Moses,  doubtless,  was  a 
ruthless  conqueror,  as  his  dealings  with  Sihon  and  Og 
sufficiently  prove.  "So  the  Lord  our  God  delivered 
into  our  hands  Og  also,  the  king  of  Bashan,  and  all 
his  people:  and  we  smote  him  until  none  was  left  to 
him  remaining.  .  .  . 


38  PREFACE. 

"And  we  utterly  destroyed  them,  as  we  did  unto 
Sihon,  king  of  Heshbon,  utterly  destroying  the  men, 
women,  and  children  of  every  city.*'  1 

There  is  nothing  extraordinary,  or  essentially  bar- 
barous, in  this  attitude  of  Moses.  The  same  theory 
of  duty  or  convenience  has  been  held  in  every  age  and 
in  every  land,  by  men  of  the  ecclesiastical  tempera- 
ment, at  the  very  moment  at  which  the  extremest 
doctrines  of  charity,  mercy,  and  love  were  practised 
by  their  contemporaries,  or  even  preached  by  them- 
selves. For  example: 

At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  two 
great  convents  of  Cluny  and  Citeau,  together,  formed 
the  heart  of  monasticism,  and  Cluny  and  Citeau  were 
two  of  the  richest  and  most  powerful  corporations  in 
the  world,  while  the  south  of  France  had  become,  by 
reason  of  the  eastern  trade,  the  wealthiest  and  most 
intelligent  district  in  Europe.  It  suffices  to  say  here 
that,  just  about  this  time,  the  people  of  Languedoc 
had  made  up  their  minds,  because  of  the  failure  of 
the  Crusades,  the  cost  of  such  magnificent  estab- 
lishments was  not  justified  by  their  results,  and  ac- 
cordingly Count  Raymond  of  Toulouse,  in  sympathy 
with  his  subjects,  did  seriously  contemplate  secular- 
ization. To  the  abbots  of  these  great  convents,  it  was 
clear  that  if  this  movement  spread  across  the  Rhone 
into  Burgundy,  the  Church  would  face  losses  which 
they  could  not  contemplate  with  equanimity.  At  this 
period  one  Arnold  was  Abbot  of  Citeau,  universally 
1  Deut.  ra,  3-6. 


PREFACE.  39 

recognized  as  perhaps  the  ablest  and  certainly  one  of 
the  most  unscrupulous  men  in  Europe.  Hence  the 
crusade  against  the  Albigenses  which  Simon  de  Mont- 
fort  commanded  and  Arnold  conducted.  Arnold's 
first  exploit  was  the  sack  of  the  undefended  town  of 
Beziers,  where  he  slaughtered  twenty  thousand  men, 
women,  and  children,  without  distinction  of  religious 
belief.  When  asked  whether  the  orthodox  might  not 
at  least  be  spared,  he  replied,  "Kill  them  all;  God 
knows  his  own." 

This  sack  of  Beziers  occurred  in  1209.  Exactly  con- 
temporaneously Saint  Francis  of  Assisi  was  organiz- 
ing his  order  whose  purpose  was  to  realize  Christ's 
kingdom  upon  earth,  by  the  renunciation  of  worldly 
wealth  and  by  the  practice  of  poverty,  humility,  and 
obedience.  Soon  after,  Arnold  was  created  Arch- 
bishop of  Narbonne  and  became  probably  the  greatest 
and  richest  prelate  in  France,  or  in  the  world.  This 
was  in  1225.  In  1226  the  first  friars  settled  in  England. 
They  multiplied  rapidly  because  of  their  rigorous  dis- 
cipline. Soon  there  were  to  be  found  among  them 
some  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  England.  Their 
chief  house  stood  in  London  in  a  spot  called  Stinking 
Lane,  near  the  Shambles  in  Newgate,  and  there, 
amidst  poverty,  hunger,  cold,  and  filth,  these  men 
passed  their  lives  in  nursing  horrible  lepers,  so  loath- 
some that  they  were  rejected  by  all  but  themselves, 
while  Arnold  lived  in  magnificence  in  his  palace,  upon 
the  spoil  of  those  whom  he  had  immolated  to  his  greed. 

In  the  case  of  Moses  the  contrast  between  precept 


40  PREFACE. 

and  practice  in  the  race  for  wealth  and  fortune  was 
not  nearly  so  violent.  Moses,  it  is  true,  according  to 
Leviticus,  declared  it  to  be  the  will  of  the  Lord  that 
the  Israelites  should  love  their  neighbors  as  them- 
selves,1 while  on  the  other  hand  in  Deuteronomy  he 
insisted  that  obedience  was  the  chief  end  of  life,  and 
that  if  the  Israelites  were  to  thoroughly  obey  the 
Lord's  behests,  they  were  to  "consume  all  the  people 
which  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  deliver  thee;  thine  eye 
shall  have  no  pity  upon  them:  neither"  should  thou 
serve  their  gods,  "for  the  Lord  thy  God  is  a  jealous 
God."2  And  the  penalty  for  slackness  was  "lest 
the  anger  of  the  Lord  thy  God  be  kindled  against 
thee,  and  destroy  thee  from  off  the  face  of  the  earth."  3 
There  is,  nevertheless,  this  much  to  be  said  in  favor 
of  the  morality  of  Moses  as  contrasted  with  that  of 
thirteenth-century  orthodox  Christians  like  Arnold; 
Moses  led  a  crusade  against  a  foreign  and  hostile 
people,  while  Arnold  slaughtered  the  Albigenses,  who 
were  his  own  flock,  sheep  to  whom  he  was  the  shep- 
herd, communicants  in  his  own  church,  and  wor- 
shippers of  the  God  whom  he  served.  What  concerns 
us,  however,  is  that  the  same  stimulant  animated 
Moses  and  Arnold  alike.  The  stimulant,  pure  and 
simple,  of  greed.  On  these  points  Moses  was  as  out- 
spokenly, one  may  say  as  brutally,  frank  as  was 
Arnold.  In  the  desert  Moses  commanded  his  followers 
to  exterminate  the  inhabitants  of  the  kingdom  of 
Bashan  in  order  that  they  might  appropriate  their 
1  Lev.  xix,  18.  2  Deut.  vn,  16.  8  Deut.  vi,  15. 


PREFACE.  41 

possessions,  which  he  enumerated,  and  Moses  had  no 
other  argument  to  urge  but  the  profitableness  of  it  by 
which  to  secure  obedience  to  his  moral  law. 

Arnold  stood  on  precisely  the  same  platform.  He 
did  not  accuse  Count  Raymond  of  heresy  or  any  other 
crime,  nor  did  Pope  Innocent  III  consider  Raymond 
as  morally  guilty  of  a  criminal  offence,  or  worthy  of 
punishment.  Indeed,  the  pope  would  have  protected 
the  Count  had  it  been  possible,  and  summoned  him 
before  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council  for  that  purpose. 
But  Arnold  told  his  audience  that  were  Raymond 
allowed  to  escape  there  would  be  an  end  of  the 
Catholic  faith  in  France.  Or,  in  other  words,  monas- 
tic property  would  be  secularized.  Perhaps  he  was 
right.  At  all  events,  this  argument  prevailed,  and 
Raymond  and  his  family  and  people  were  sacrificed. 

Moses  promised  his  congregation  that,  if  they 
would  spare  nothing  they  should  enjoy  abundance  of 
good  things,  without  working  for  them.  He  was  much 
more  pitiless  than  such  a  man  as  King  David  thought 
it  necessary  to  be,  but  Moses  was  not  a  soldier  like 
David.  He  could  not  promise  to  win  victories  himself, 
he  could  but  promise  what  he  had  in  hand,  and  that 
was  the  spoil  of  those  they  massacred.  Moses  never 
had  but  one  appeal  to  make  for  obedience,  one  in- 
centive to  offer  to  obey.  In  this  he  was  perfectly 
honest  and  perfectly  logical.  His  congregation  and  he, 
finding  Egypt  untenable,  were  engaged  in  a  common 
land  speculation  to  improve  their  condition;  a  specu- 
lation in  which  Moses  believed,  but  which  could  only 


42  PREFACE. 

be  brought  to  a  successful  end  by  obtaining  control  of 
the  dominant  energy  of  the  world.  This  energy,  he 
held,  could  be  handled  by  no  one  but  himself,  and 
then  only  in  case  those  who  acted  with  him  were  ab- 
solutely obedient  to  his  commands,  which,  taken  to- 
gether, were  equivalent  to  a  magical  exorcism  or  spell. 
Then  only  could  they  hope  that  the  Lord  of  Abraham 
and  Isaac  would  give  them  "great  and  goodly  cities, 
which  thou  buildedst  not,  And  houses  full  of  all  good 
things,  which  thou  filledst  not,  and  wells  digged, 
which  thou  diggedst  not,  vineyards  and  olive  trees, 
which  thou  plantedst  not."  l 

Very  obviously,  if  the  theory  which  Moses  pro- 
pounded were  sound  the  assets  which  he  offered  as 
an  inducement  for  docility  could  be  obtained,  at  so 
cheap  a  rate,  in  no  other  way.  All  Moses'  moral  teach- 
ing amounted,  therefore,  to  this  —  "It  pays  to  be 
obedient  and  good."  No  argument  could  have  been 
better  adapted  to  Babylonish  society,  and  it  seems  to 
have  answered  nearly  as  well  with  the  Israelites,  which 
proves  that  they  stood  on  nearly  the  same  intellectual 
plane.  The  chief  difficulty  with  which  Moses  had  to 
contend  was  that  his  countrymen  did  not  thoroughly 
believe  in  him,  nor  in  the  efficacy  of  his  motor.  They 
always  were  tempted  to  try  experiments  with  other 
motors  which  were  operated  by  other  prophets  and 
by  other  peoples  who  were,  apparently,  as  prosperous 
as  they,  or  even  more  so.  His  trouble  was  not  that  his 
followers  were  nomads  unprepared  for  a  sedentary  life 
1  Deut  vi,  10, 11. 


PREFACE.  43 

or  a  moral  law  like  his,  or  unable  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  the  property  of  a  people  further  advanced  in 
civilization  than  they  were.  The  Amalekites  would 
have  responded  to  no  such  system  of  bribery  as  Moses 
offered  the  Israelites,  who  did  respond  with  intelli- 
gence, if  not  always  with  enthusiasm. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  Mosaic  legislation  which  Dr. 
Budde  curtly  dismisses  as  impossible  to  have  come 
from  Moses,1  as  presupposing  a  knowledge  of  a  settled 
agricultural  life,  which  "Israel  did  not  reach  until 
after  Moses'  death." 

All  this  is  an  assumption  of  fact  unsupported  by 
evidence;  but  quite  the  contrary,  as  we  can  see  by  an 
examination  of  the  law  in  question.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  date  of  the  establishment  of  the  cities 
of  refuge,  I  suppose  that  it  will  not  be  seriously  denied 
that  the  law  of  the  covenant  as  laid  down  in  Exodus 
xx,  1,  Numbers  xxxv,  6,  is  at  least  as  old  as  the  age  of 
Moses,  in  principle,  if  not  in  words;  and  this  legal 
principle  is  quite  inconsistent  with,  if  not  directly 
antagonistic  to,  all  the  prejudices  and  regulations, 
moral,  religious,  or  civil,  of  a  pure  nomadic  society, 
since  it  presupposes  a  social  condition  which,  if 
adopted,  would  be  fatal  to  a  nomad  society. 

The  true  nomad  knows  no  criminal  law  save  the  law 
of  the  blood  feud,  which  is  the  law  of  revenge,  and 
which  prevailed  among  the  Hebrews  much  earlier.  In 
the  early  Saxon  law  it  was  expressed  by  the  apothegm 
"Factum  reputabitur  pro  volunte."  The  act  implies 
1  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,  31. 


44  PREFACE. 

the  intent.  That  is  to  say,  the  tribe  is  an  enlarged 
family  who,  since  they  have  no  collective  system  of 
sovereignty  which  gives  them  common  protection  by 
an  organized  police,  and  courts  with  power  to  enforce 
process,  have  no  option  but  to  protect  each  other. 
Therefore,  it  is  incumbent  on  each  member  of  the 
tribe  or  family  to  avenge  an  injury  to  any  other  mem- 
ber, whether  the  injury  be  accidental  or  otherwise; 
and  to  be  himself  the  judge  of  what  amounts  to  an 
injury.  Such  a  condition  prevailed  among  the  He- 
brews at  a  very  early  period;  "And  God  blessed  Noah 
and  his  sons,  and  said  unto  them:  ...  at  the  hand  of 
every  man's  brother  will  I  require  the  life  of  man. 
Whoso  sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood 
be  shed."  1  These  customs  and  the  type  of  thought 
which  sustain  them  are  very  tenacious  and  change 
slowly.  Moses  could  not  have  altered  the  nomadic 
customs  of  thought  and  of  blood  revenge,  had  he  tried, 
more  than  could  Canute.  It  would  have  been  im- 
possible. The  advent  of  a  civilized  conception  of  the 
law  is  the  work  of  centuries  as  the  history  of  England 
proves. 

,  We  know  not  how  long  ago  it  was  that  the  law  of 
the  blood  feud  was  fully  recognized  in  England,  but  it 
had  already  been  shaken  at  the  conquest,  and  its 
death-blow  was  given  it  by  the  Church,  which  had 
begun  to  tire  of  the  responsibility  entailed  by  the 
trial  by  ordeal  or  miracle,  and  the  obloquy  which  it 
involved,  at  a  relatively  early  date.  For  the  purposes 
1  Gen.  ix,  1,  5,  6. 


PREFACE.  45 

of  the  Church  and  the  uses  of  confession  it  was  more 
convenient  to  regard  crime  or  tort,  as  did  the  Romans; 
as  a  mental  condition,  dependent  altogether  upon  the 
state  of  the  mind  or  "animus."  Malice  in  the  eye  of 
the  Church  was  the  virus  which  poisoned  the  other- 
wise innocent  act,  and  made  the  thought  alone  pun- 
ishable. Indeed,  this  conception  is  one  which  has  not 
yet  been  completely  established  even  in  the  modern 
law.  The  first  signs  of  such  a  revolution  in  juris- 
prudence only  began  to  appear  in  England  some  seven 
centuries  ago.  As  Mr.  Maitland  has  observed  in  his 
History  of  English  Law,1  "We  receive  a  shock  of  sur- 
prise when  we  meet  with  a  maxim  which  has  troubled 
our  modern  lawyers,  namely,  Reum  nonfacit  nisi  mens 
rea,  in  the  middle  of  the  Leges  Henrici."  That  is  to 
say  somewhere  about  the  year  1118  A.D.  This  maxim 
was  taken  bodily  out  of  a  sermon  of  Saint  Augustine, 
which  accounts  for  it,  but  at  that  time  the  Church 
had  another  process  to  suggest  by  which  she  asserted 
her  authority.  She  threw  the  responsibility  for  detect- 
ing guilt,  in  cases  of  doubt,  upon  God.  By  the  ordeal, 
if  a  homicide,  for  example,  were  committed,  and  the 
accused  denied  his  guilt,  he  was  summoned  to  appear, 
and  then,  after  a  solemn  reference  to  God  by  the 
ecclesiastics  in  charge,  he  was  caused  either  to  carry 
a  red-hot  iron  bar  a  certain  distance  or  to  plunge  his 
arms  in  boiling  water.  If  he  were  found,  after  a  certain 
length  of  time,  during  which  his  arms  were  bandaged, 
to  have  been  injured,  he  was  held  to  have  been  guilty. 
1  Vol.  n,  476. 


46  PREFACE. 

If  he  had  escaped  unhurt  he  was  innocent.  Gradually, 
however,  the  ordeal  began  to  fall  into  ridicule.  William 
Rufus  gibed  at  it,  for  of  fifty  men  sent  to  the  ordeal  of 
iron,  under  the  sacred  charge  of  the  clerks,  all  escaped, 
which  certainly,  as  Mr.  Maitland  intimates,  looks  as 
if  the  officiating  ecclesiastics  had  an  interest  in  the 
result.1  At  length,  by  the  Lateran  Council  of  1215, 
the  Church  put  an  end  to  the  institution,  but  long 
afterward  it  found  its  upholders.  For  example,  the 
Mirror,  written  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I  (circa  1285) 
complained,  "It  is  an  abuse  that  proofs  and  corn- 
purgations  be  not  by  the  miracle  of  God  where  other 
proof  faileth."  Nor  was  the  principle  that  "attempts" 
to  commit  indictable  offences  are  crimes,  established 
as  law,  until  at  least  the  time  of  the  Star  Chamber, 
before  its  abolition  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
Though  doubtless  it  is  the  law  to-day.2  And  this,  al- 
though the  means  used  may  have  been  impossible. 
Moreover,  the  doctrine  is  still  in  process  of  enlarge- 
ment. 

Very  convincing  conclusions  may  be  drawn  from 
these  facts.  The  subject  is  obscure  and  difficult,  but 
if  the  inception  of  the  process  of  breaking  down  the 
right  of  enforcing  the  blood  feud  be  fixed  provisionally 
toward  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century,  —  and  this 
date  is  early  enough,  —  the  movement  of  thought 
cannot  be  said  to  have  attained  anything  like  ultimate 
results  before  at  least  the  year  1321  when  a  case  is 

1  History  of  English  Law,  n,  599,  note  2.  , 

2  Stephen,  Digest  of  the  Criminal  Law,  192. 


PREFACE.  47 

cited  wherein  a  man  was  held  guilty  because  he  had 
attempted  to  kill  his  master,  and  the  "volunias  in  isto 
casu  reputabitur  pro  facto." 

Measuring  by  this  standard  five  hundred  years  is  a 
short  enough  period  to  estimate  the  time  necessary 
for  a  community  to  pass  from  the  stage  when  the 
blood  feud  is  recognized  as  unquestioned  law,  to  the 
status  involved  in  the  administration  of  the  cities  of 
refuge,  for  in  these  cities  not  only  the  mental  condition 
is  provided  for  as  a  legitimate  defence,  but  the  defence 
of  negligence  is  made  admissible  in  a  secular  court. 

"These  six  cities  shall  be  a  refuge,  both  for  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  and  for  the  stranger,  and  for  the  so- 
journer  among  them;  that  every  one  that  killeth  any 
person  unawares  may  flee  thither.  .  .  . 

"If  he  thrust  him  of  hatred,  or  hurl  at  him  by  laying 
of  wait  that  he  die; 

"Or  in  enmity  smite  him  with  his  hand,  that  he  die: 
he  that  smote  him  shall  surely  be  put  to  death;  for  he 
is  a  murderer:  the  revenger  of  blood  shall  slay  the 
murderer,  when  he  meeteth  him. 

"But  if  he  thrust  him  suddenly  without  enmity,  or 
have  cast  upon  him  anything  without  laying  of  wait, 

"  Or  with  any  stone,  wherewith  a  man  may  die,  see- 
ing him  not,  and  cast  it  upon  him,  that  he  die,  and  was 
not  his  enemy,  neither  sought  his  harm: 

"Then  the  congregation  shall  judge  between  the 
slayer  and  the  revenger  of  blood  according  to  these 
judgments: 

"And  the  congregation  shall  deliver  the  slayer  out 


48  PREFACE. 

of  the  hand  of  the  revenger  of  blood,  and  the  congre- 
gation shall  restore  him  to  the  city  of  his  refuge, 
whither  he  was  fled.".  .  .  l 

Here  we  have  a  defendant  in  a  case  of  homicide 
setting  up  the  defence  that  the  killing  happened 
through  an  accident,  but  an  accident  not  caused  by 
criminal  negligence,  and  this  defence  is  to  be  tried  by 
the  congregation,  which  is  tantamount  to  trial  by  jury. 
It  is  not  left  to  God,  under  the  oversight  of  the  Church; 
and  this  is  precisely  our  own  system  at  the  present 
day.  We  now  come  to  the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from 
these  facts.  Supposing  that  the  Israelites  when  they 
migrated  to  Egypt,  in  the  time  of  Joseph,  were  in  the 
condition  of  pure  nomads  among  whom  the  blood  feud 
was  fully  recognized  as  law,  an  interval  of  four  or 
five  hundred  years,  such  as  they  are  supposed  to  have 
passed  in  Goshen  would  bring  them  to  the  exodus. 
Now,  assuming  that  the  Israelites  during  those  four 
centuries,  when  they  lived  among  civilized  neighbors 
and  under  civilized  law,  made  an  intellectual  move- 
ment corresponding  in  velocity  to  the  movement  the 
English  made  after  the  conquest,  they  would  have 
been,  about  the  time  when  the  cities  of  refuge  were 
created,  in  the  position  described  in  Numbers,  which 
is  what  we  should  expect  assuming  the  Biblical  tra- 
dition to  be  true. 

To  us  the  important  question  is  not  whether  a  cer- 
tain piece  of  the  supposed  Mosaic  legislation  actually 
went  into  effect  during  the  life  of  Moses,  for  that  is 
1  Numbers  xxxv,  15,  20-25. 


PREFA  CE.  49 

relatively  immaterial,  but  whether  the  Biblical  nar- 
rative is,  on  the  whole,  worthy  of  credence,  and  this 
correlation  of  dates  gives  the  strongest  possible  evi- 
dence in  its  favor.  Very  possibly,  perhaps  it  may 
even  be  said  certainly,  the  order  in  which  events  oc- 
curred may  have  been  transposed,  but,  taken  as  a 
whole,  it  is  impossible  to  resist  the  inference  that  the 
Bible  story  is  excellent  history  and  that,  due  allowance 
being  made  for  the  prejudice  of  the  various  scribes 
who  wrote  the  Pentateuch  in  favor  of  the  miraculous, 
where  Moses  was  concerned,  the  Biblical  record  is 
good  and  trustworthy  history,  and  frank  at  that;  — 
much  superior  to  quantities  of  modern  documents 
which  we  accept  without  question. 

Of  all  the  achievements  of  Moses'  life  none  equals 
the  exodus  itself,  either  in  brilliancy  or  success.  How 
it  was  possible  for  Moses,  with  the  assistance  he  had 
at  command,  to  marshal  and  move  a  column  of  a 
million  or  a  million  and  a  half  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  without  discipline  or  cohesion,  and  encum- 
bered with  their  baggage,  beside  their  cattle,  is  an 
insoluble  mystery.  "And  the  children  of  Israel  did 
according  to  the  word  of  Moses;  and  they  borrowed 
of  the  Egyptians  jewels  of  silver,  and  jewels  of  gold, 
and  raiment:  .  .  .  And  they  spoiled  the  Egyptians. 
And  the  children  of  Israel  journeyed  from  Ramses  to 
Succoth,  about  six  hundred  thousand  on  foot  that  were 
men,  beside  children.  And  a  mixed  multitude  went 
up  also  with  them;  and  flocks  and  herds,  even  very 
much  cattle."  They  started  from  Ramses  and  Succoth. 


50  PREFACE. 

The  position  of  Ramses  has  been  identified;  that  of 
Succoth  is  more  questionable.  Ramses  and  Pithom 
were  fortified  places,  built  by  the  Israelites  for  Ramses 
II,  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty,  but  apparently  Suc- 
coth was  the  last  halting-place  before  coming  to 
the  difficult  ground  which  was  overflowed  by  the 
sea. 

The  crossing  was  made  at  night,  but  it  is  hard  to 
understand  how,  even  under  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions of  weather,  such  a  vast  and  confused  multi- 
tude of  women  and  children  could  have  made  the 
march  in  darkness  with  an  active  enemy  pursuing, 
without  loss  of  Me  or  material.  Indeed,  even  at  that 
day  the  movement  seemed  to  the  actors  so  unpar- 
alleled that  it  always  passed  for  a  miracle,  and  its 
perfect  success  gave  Moses  more  reputation  with  the 
Israelites  and  more  practical  influence  over  them  than 
anything  else  he  ever  did,  or  indeed  than  all  his  other 
works  together.  "And  Israel  saw  that  great  work 
which  the  Lord  did  upon  the  Egyptians:  and  the 
people  feared  the  Lord  and  believed  the  Lord  and  his 
servant  Moses." 

"And  Miriam,  the  prophetess,  the  sister  of  Aaron; 
and  all  the  women  went  after  her  with  timbrels  and 
with  dances."  Now  Miriam  was  in  general  none  too 
loyal  a  follower  of  her  younger  brother,  but  that  day, 
or  rather  night,  she  did  proclaim  Moses  as  a  con- 
queror; which  was  a  great  concession  from  her,  and 
meant  much.  And  Moses  exulted  openly,  as  he  had 
good  cause  to  do,  and  gave  vent  to  his  exultation  in 


PREFACE.  51 

a  song  which  tradition  has  ever  since  attributed  to 
him,  and  has  asserted  to  have  been  sung  by  him  and 
his  congregation  as  they  stood  by  the  shore  of  the  sea 
and  watched  the  corpses  of  the  Egyptians  lying  in  the 
sand.  And,  if  ever  man  had,  Moses  then  had,  cause 
for  exultation,  for  he  had  seemingly  proved  by  the 
test  of  war,  which  is  the  ultimate  test  to  which  a  man 
can  subject  such  a  theory  as  his,  that  he  had  indeed 
discovered  the  motor  which  he  sought,  and,  more  im- 
portant still,  that  he  knew  how  to  handle  it.  There- 
fore, he  was  master  of  supreme  energy  and  held  his 
right  to  command  by  the  title  of  conquest.  This  was 
the  culminating  moment  of  his  life;  he  never  again 
reached  such  exaltation.  From  this  moment  his  slow 
and  gradual  decline  began. 

And,  indeed,  great  as  had  been  the  momentary  suc- 
cess of  Moses,  his  position  was  one  of  extreme  diffi- 
culty, and  probably  he  so  understood  it,  otherwise 
there  would  be  no  way  to  account  for  his  choosing  the 
long,  difficult,  and  perilous  journey  by  Sinai,  instead 
of  approaching  the  "Promised  Land"  directly  by 
way  of  Kadesh-Barnea,  which  was,  in  any  event,  to 
be  his  ultimate  objective.  It  may  well  have  been 
because  Moses  felt  himself  unable  alone  to  cope  with 
the  difficulties  confronting  him  that  he  decided  at 
any  cost  to  seek  Jethro  in  Midian,  who  seems  to  have 
been  the  only  able,  honest,  and  experienced  man  within 
reach.  Joshua,  indeed,  might  be  held  to  be  an  excep- 
tion to  this  generalization,  but  Joshua,  though  a  good 
soldier,  was  a  man  of  somewhat  narrow  understanding, 


52  PREFACE. 

and  quite  unfit  to  grapple  with  questions  involving 
jurisprudence  and  financial  topography. 

And  at  this  juncture  Moses  must  have  felt  his  own 
deficiencies  keenly.  As  a  captain  he  made  no  pre- 
tence to  efficiency.  The  Amalekites  were,  as  he  well 
knew,  at  this  moment  lying  in  wait  for  him,  and  forth- 
with he  recognized  that  he  had  no  alternative  but  to 
retire  into  the  background  himself  and  surrender  the 
active  command  of  the  army  to  Joshua,  a  fatal  con- 
cession had  Joshua  been  ambitious  or  unscrupulous. 
And  this  was  but  the  beginning.  Before  he  could 
occupy  Palestine  he  had  to  encounter  and  overcome 
numbers  of  equally  formidable  foes,  a  defeat  by  any 
one  of  whom  might  well  be  fatal.  A  man  like  Jethro, 
therefore,  would  be  invaluable  in  guiding  the  caravan 
to  spots  favorable  for  action,  from  whence  retreat 
to  a  place  of  safety  would  be  open  in  case  of  a  check. 
A  reverse  which  happened  on  a  later  occasion  gave 
Moses  a  shock  he  never  forgot. 

Furthermore,  though  Moses  lived  many  years  with 
Jethro,  as  his  chief  servant,  he  never  seems  to  have 
travelled  extensively  in  Arabia,  and  to  have  been 
ignorant  of  the  chief  trade  routes  along  which  wells 
were  dug,  and  of  the  oases  where  pasture  was  to  be 
found;  so  that  Moses  was  nearly  worthless  as  a 
guide,  and  this  was  a  species  of  knowledge  in  which 
Jethro,  according  to  Moses'  own  statement,  excelled. 
Meanwhile,  the  lives  of  all  his  followers  depended 
on  such  knowledge.  And  Moses,  when  he  reached 
Sinai,  left  no  stone  unturned  to  overcome  Jethro 's 


PREFACE.  53 

reluctance  to  join  him  and  to  instruct  him  on  the 
march  north. 

More  important  and  pressing  than  all,  Moses  was 
ignorant  of  how,  practically,  to  administer  the  law 
which  he  taught.  His  only  idea  was  to  do  all  in  per- 
son, but  this,  with  so  large  a  following,  was  impossible. 
And  here  also  his  hope  lay  in  Jethro.  For  when 
he  got  to  Sinai,  and  Jethro  remonstrated  with  him 
upon  his  methods,  pointing  out  that  they  were  im- 
practicable, all  Moses  had  to  say  in  reply  was  that  he 
sat  all  day  to  hear  disputes  and  "I  judge  between  one 
and  another;  and  I  do  make  them  know  the  statutes 
of  God,  and  his  laws."  Further  than  this  he  had 
nothing  to  propose.  It  was  Jethro  who  explained  to 
him  a  constructive  policy. 

On  the  whole,  upon  this  analysis,  it  appears  that  in 
all  those  executive  departments  in  which  Moses,  by 
stress  of  the  responsibilities  which  he  had  assumed, 
was  called  upon,  imperatively,  to  act,  there  was  but 
one,  that  of  the  magician  or  wise  man,  in  which,  by 
temperament  and  training,  he  was  fitted  to  excel,  and 
the  functions  of  this  profession  drove  him  into  an 
intolerably  irksome  and  distressing  position,  yet  a 
position  from  which  throughout  his  life  he  found  it 
impossible  to  escape.  No  one  who  attentively  weighs 
the  evidence  can,  I  apprehend,  escape  the  conviction 
that  Moses  was  at  bottom  an  honest  man  who  would 
have  conformed  to  the  moral  law  he  laid  down  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  had  it  been  possible  for  him  to  do 
so.  Among  these  precepts  none  ranked  higher  than 


54  PREFACE. 

a  regard  for  truth  and  honesty.  "Ye  shall  not  steal, 
neither  deal  falsely,  neither  lie  one  to  another."  l 
And  this  text  is  but  one  example  of  a  general  drift  of 
thought. 

Whether  these  particular  words  of  Leviticus,  or  any 
similar  phrases,  were  ever  used  by  Moses  is  imma- 
terial. No  one  can  doubt  that,  in  substance,  they 
contained  the  gist  of  his  moral  doctrine  and  that  he 
enforced  the  moral  duty  which  they  convey  to  the 
best  of  his  power.  And  here  the  burden  lay,  which 
crushed  this  man,  from  which  he  never  thenceforward 
could,  even  for  an  instant,  free  himself,  and  which 
Saint  Paul  avers  to  be  the  heaviest  burden  man  can 
bear.  Moses,  to  fulfil  what  he  conceived  to  be  his 
destiny  and  which  at  least  certainly  was  his  ambition, 
was  condemned  to  lead  a  life  of  deceit  and  to  utter 
no  word  during  his  long  subsequent  march  which  was 
not  positively  or  inferentially  a  lie.  And  the  bitterest 
of  his  trials  must  have  been  the  agony  of  anxiety  in 
which  he  must  have  lived  lest  some  error  in  judgment 
on  his  part,  some  slackness  in  measuring  the  exact 
credulity  of  his  audience,  should  cause  his  exposure 
and  lead  to  his  being  cast  out  of  the  camp  as  an  im- 
postor and  hunted  to  death  as  a  false  prophet :  a  fate 
which  more  than  once  nearly  overtook  him.  Indeed, 
as  he  aged  and  his  nerves  lost  their  elasticity  under  the 
tension,  he  became  obsessed  with  the  fixed  idea  that 
God  had  renounced  him  and  that  some  horror  would 
overtake  him  should  he  attempt  to  cross  the  Jordan 
1  Leviticus  xix,  11. 


PREFACE.  55 

and  enter  the  "Promised  Land."  Defeated  at  Hor- 
mah,  he  dared  not  face  another  such  check  and, 
therefore,  dawdled  away  his  time  in  the  wilderness 
until  further  dawdling  became  impossible.  Then  fol- 
lowed his  mental  collapse  which  is  told  in  Deuter- 
onomy, together  with  his  suicide  on  Mount  Nebo. 
And  thus  he  died  because  he  could  not  gratify  at  once 
his  lust  for  power  and  his  instinct  to  live  an  honest 
man. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  interval  during  which  Moses  led  the  exodus 
falls,  naturally,  into  three  parts  of  unequal  length. 
The  first  consists  of  the  months  which  elapsed  be- 
tween the  departure  from  Ramses  and  the  arrival  at 
Sinai.  The  second  comprises  the  halt  at  Sinai,  while 
the  third  contains  the  story  of  the  rest  of  his  life,  end- 
ing with  Mount  Nebo. 

His  trials  began  forthwith.  The  march  was  hardly 
a  week  old  before  the  column  was  in  quasi-revolt  be- 
cause he  had  known  so  little  of  the  country,  that  he 
had  led  the  caravan  three  days  through  a  waterless 
wilderness  where  they  feared  to  perish  from  thirst. 
And  matters  grew  steadily  worse.  At  Rephidim, 
"And  the  people  murmured  against  Moses,  and  said, 
Wherefore  is  this  that  thou  hast  brought  us  up  out  of 
Egypt,  to  kill  us  and  our  children  and  our  cattle  with 
thirst?"  Not  impossibly  Moses  may  still,  at  this 
stage  of  his  experiences,  have  believed  in  himself,  in 
the  God  he  pretended  to  serve,  and  in  his  mission.  At 
least  he  made  a  feint  of  so  doing.  Indeed,  he  had  to. 
Not  to  have  done  so  would  have  caused  his  instant 
downfall.  He  always  had  to  do  so,  in  every  emer- 
gency of  his  life.  A  few  days  later  he  was  at  his  wits' 
end.  He  cried  unto  the  Lord,  "  What  shall  I  do  unto 
this  people?  They  be  almost  ready  to  stone  me."  In 
short,  long  before  the  congregation  reached  Sinai,  and 


PREFACE.  57 

indeed  before  Moses  had  fought  his  first  battle  with 
Amalek,  the  people  had  come  to  disbelieve  in  Moses 
and  also  to  question  whether  there  was  such  a  god  as 
he  pretended. 

"And  he  called  the  name  of  the  place  Massah,  and 
Meribah,  because  of  the  chiding  of  the  children  of 
Israel,  and  because  they  tempted  the  Lord,  saying,  Is 
the  Lord  among  us,  or  not?" 

"Then  came  Amalek,  and  fought  with  Israel  in 
Rephidim."  l 

Under  such  conditions  it  was  vital  to  Moses  to  show 
resolution  and  courage;  but  it  was  here  that  Moses, 
on  the  contrary,  flinched;  as  he  usually  did  flinch  when 
it  came  to  war,  for  Moses  was  no  soldier. 

"And  Moses  said  unto  Joshua,  Choose  us  out  men 
and  go  out,  fight  with  Amalek:  to-morrow  I  will  stand 
on  the  top  of  the  hill  with  the  rod  of  God  in  mine 
hand." 

And  Moses  actually  had  the  assurance  to  do  as  he 
proposed,  nor  did  he  even  have  the  endurance  to 
stand.  He  made  Aaron  and  Hur  fetch  a  stone  on 
which  he  should  sit  and  then  hold  up  his  hands  for 
him,  pretending  the  while  that  when  Moses  held  up 
his  hands  the  Hebrews  prevailed  and  when  he  lowered 
them  Amalek  prevailed.  Notwithstanding,  Joshua 
won  a  victory.  But  it  may  readily  be  believed  that 
this  performance  of  his  functions  as  a  captain,  did  little 
to  strengthen  the  credit  of  Moses  among  the  fighting 
men.  Nor  evidently  was  Moses  satisfied  with  the 
1  Exodus  xvii,  7,  8. 


58  PREFACE. 

figure  that  he  cut,  nor  was  he  confident  that  Joshua 
approved  of  him,  for  the  Lord  directed  Moses  to  make 
excuses,  promising  to  do  better  the  next  time,  by  as- 
suring Joshua  that  "I  will  utterly  put  out  the  remem- 
brance of  Amalek  from  under  heaven."  This  was  the 
best  apology  Moses  could  make  for  his  weakness. 
However,  the  time  had  now  come  when  Moses  was 
to  realize  his  plan  of  meeting  Jethro. 

"And  Jethro  .  .  .  came  with  his  sons  and  his  wife 
unto  Moses  into  the  wilderness,  where  he  encamped 
at  the  mount  of  God:  .  .  .  And  Moses  went  out  to 
meet  his  father-in-law,  and  did  obeisance,  and  kissed 
him;  and  they  asked  each  other  of  their  welfare;  and 
they  came  into  the  tent. 

"And  Moses  told  his  father-in-law  all  that  the  Lord 
had  done  unto  Pharaoh  and  to  the  Egyptians  for 
Israel's  sake,  and  all  the  travail  that  had  come  upon 
them  by  the  way,  and  how  the  Lord  had  delivered 
them.  .  .  . 

"And  Jethro  said,  Blessed  be  the  Lord,  who  hath 
delivered  you  out  of  the  hand  of  the  Egyptians.  .  .  . 
Now  I  know  that  the  Lord  is  greater  than  all  gods. 
.  .  .  And  Aaron  came,  and  all  the  elders  of  Israel,  to 
eat  bread  with  Moses'  father-in-law  before  God." 

It  is  from  all  this  very  plain  that  Jethro  had  a 
controlling  influence  over  Moses,  and  was  the  prox- 
imate cause  of  much  that  followed.  For  the  next 
morning  Moses,  as  was  his  custom,  "sat  to  judge  the 
people :  and  the  people  stood  by  Moses  from  the  morn- 
ing unto  the  evening."  And  when  Jethro  saw  how 


PREFACE.  59 

Moses  proceeded  he  remonstrated,  "Why  sittest  thou 
thyself  alone,  and  all  the  people  stand  by  thee  from 
morning  unto  even?" 

And  Moses  replied:  "Because  the  people  come  unto 
me  to  enquire  of  God." 

And  Jethro  protested,  saying  "The  thing  thou  doest 
is  not  good.  Thou  wilt  surely  wear  away,  both  thou 
and  this  people  that  is  with  thee:  for  this  thing  is  too 
heavy  for  thee;  thou  art  not  able  to  perform  it  thyself 
alone. 

"Hearken,  ...  I  will  give  thee  counsel,  and  God 
shall  be  with  thee;  Be  thou  for  the  people  to  God- 
ward,  that  thou  mayest  bring  the  causes  unto  God." 

Then  it  was  that  Moses  perceived  that  he  must 
have  a  divinely  promulgated  code.  Accordingly, 
Moses  made  his  preparations  for  a  great  dramatic 
effect,  and  it  is  hard  to  see  how  he  could  have  made 
them  better.  For,  whatever  failings  he  may  have  had 
in  his  other  capacities  as  a  leader,  he  understood  his 
part  as  a  magician. 

He  told  the  people  to  be  ready  on  the  third  day,  for 
on  the  third  day  the  Lord  would  come  down  in  the 
sight  of  all  upon  Mount  Sinai.  But,  "Take  heed  to 
yourselves  that  ye  go  not  up  into  the  mount,  or  touch 
the  border  of  it:  whosoever  toucheth  the  mount  shall 
be  surely  put  to  death: 

"There  shall  not  an  hand  touch  it,  but  he  shall 
surely  be  stoned  or  shot  through;  whether  it  be  beast 
or  man,  it  shall  not  live:  when  the  trumpet  soundeth 
long,  they  shall  come  up  to  the  mount." 


60  PREFACE, 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Moses  either  had  won- 
derful luck,  or  that  he  had  wonderful  judgment  in 
weather,  for,  as  it  happened  in  the  passage  of  the  Red 
Sea,  so  it  happened  here.  At  the  Red  Sea  he  was 
aided  by  a  gale  of  wind  which  coincided  with  a  low 
tide  and  made  the  passage  practicable,  and  at  Sinai 
he  had  a  thunder-storm. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  on  the  third  day,  in  the  morn- 
ing, that  there  were  thunders  and  lightnings,  and  a 
thick  cloud  upon  the  mount,  and  the  voice  of  the 
trumpet  exceeding  loud;  so  that  all  the  people  that 
was  in  the  camp  trembled."  Moses  had  undoubtedly 
sent  some  thoroughly  trustworthy  person,  probably 
Joshua,  up  the  mountain  to  blow  a  ram's  horn  and  to 
light  a  bonfire,  and  the  effect  seems  to  have  been 
excellent. 

"And  Mount  Sinai  was  altogether  on  a  smoke,  be- 
cause the  Lord  descended  upon  it  in  fire:  and  the 
smoke  thereof  ascended  as  the  smoke  of  a  furnace, 
and  the  whole  mount  quaked  greatly. 

"And  when  the  voice  of  the  trumpet  sounded  long, 
and  waxed  louder  and  louder,  Moses  spake,  and  God 
answered  him  by  a  voice. 

"And  the  Lord  came  down  upon  Mount  Sinai,  on 
the  top  of  the  mount;  and  the  Lord  called  Moses  up 
to  the  top  of  the  mount;  and  Moses  went  up."  And 
the  first  thing  that  Moses  did  on  behalf  of  the  Lord 
was  to  "charge  the  people,  lest  they  break  through 
unto  the  Lord  to  gaze,  and  many  of  them  perish." 

And  Moses  replied  to  God's  enquiry,  "The  people 


PREFACE.  61 

cannot  come  up  to  Mount  Sinai:  for  thou  chargedst 
us,  saying,  Set  bounds  about  the  mount. 

"And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Away,  get  thee  down, 
and  thou  shalt  come  up,  thou,  and  Aaron  with  thee: 
but  let  not  the  priests  and  the  people  break  through 
to  come  up  unto  the  Lord,  lest  he  break  forth  upon 
them. 

"So  Moses  went  down  unto  the  people,  and  spake 
unto  them." 

Whether  the  decalogue,  as  we  know  it,  was  a  code 
of  law  actually  delivered  upon  Sinai,  which  German 
critics  very  much  dispute  as  being  inconsistent  with 
the  stage  of  civilization  at  which  the  Israelites  had 
arrived,  but  which  is  altogether  kindred  to  the  Baby- 
lonish law  with  which  Moses  was  familiar,  is  imma- 
terial for  the  present  purpose.  What  is  essential  is 
that  beside  the  decalogue  itself  there  is  a  considerable 
body  of  law  chiefly  concerned  with  the  position  of 
servants  or  slaves,  the  difference  between  assaults  or 
torts  committed  with  or  without  malice,  theft,  tres- 
pass, and  the  regulation  of  the  lex  talionis.  There  are 
beside  a  variety  of  other  matters  touched  upon  all  of 
which  may  be  found  in  the  21st,  22d,  and  23d  chap- 
ters of  Exodus. 

Up  to  this  point  in  his  show  Moses  had  behaved 
with  discretion  and  had  obtained  a  complete  success. 
The  next  day  he  went  on  to  demand  an  acceptance  of 
his  code,  which  he  prepared  to  submit  in  form.  But 
as  a  preliminary  he  made  ready  to  take  Aaron  and  his 
two  sons,  together  with  seventy  elders  of  the  congre- 


62  PREFACE. 

gation  up  the  mountain,  to  be  especially  impressed 
with  a  sacrifice  and  a  feast  which  he  had  it  in  his  mind 
to  organize.  In  the  first  place,  "Moses  .  .  .  rose  up 
early  in  the  morning,  and  builded  an  altar,  .  .  .  and 
sacrificed  peace  offerings  of  oxen  unto  the  Lord.  .  .  . 

"And  he  took  the  book  of  the  covenant,  and  read 
in  the  audience  of  the  people:  and  they  said,  All  that 
the  Lord  hath  said  will  we  do,  and  be  obedient." 

Had  Moses  been  content  to  end  his  ceremony  here 
and  to  return  to  the  camp  with  his  book  of  the  cov- 
enant duly  accepted  as  law,  all  might  have  been  well. 
But  success  seems  to  have  intoxicated  him,  and  he 
conceived  an  undue  contempt  for  the  intelligence  of 
his  audience,  being,  apparently,  convinced  that  there 
were  no  limits  to  their  credulity,  and  that  he  could  do 
with  them  as  he  pleased. 

It  was  not  enough  for  him  that  he  should  have  them 
accept  an  ordinary  book  admittedly  written  by  him- 
self. There  was  nothing  overpoweringly  impressive 
hi  that.  What  he  wanted  was  a  stone  tablet  on 
which  his  code  should  be  engraved,  as  was  the  famous 
code  of  Hammurabi,  which  he  probably  knew  well, 
and  this  engraving  must  putatively  be  done  by  God 
himself,  to  give  it  the  proper  solemnity. 

To  have  such  a  code  as  this  engraved  either  by  him- 
self or  by  any  workman  he  could  take  into  the  moun- 
tain with  him,  would  be  a  work  of  time  and  would 
entail  his  absence  from  the  camp,  and  this  was  a  very 
serious  risk.  But  he  was  over-confident  and  deter- 
mined to  run  it,  rather  than  be  baulked  of  his  purpose. 


PREFACE.  63 

"And  Moses  rose  up,  and  his  minister  Joshua;  and 
Moses  went  up  into  the  mount  of  God. 

"And  he  said  unto  the  elders,  Tarry  you  here  for  us, 
until  we  come  again  unto  you:  and,  behold,  Aaron 
and  Hur  are  with  you:  and  if  any  man  have  matters 
to  do,  let  him  come  unto  them.  And  Moses  went 
into  the  midst  of  the  cloud,  and  gat  him  up  into  the 
mount:  and  Moses  was  in  the  mount  forty  days  and 
forty  nights." 

But  Moses  had  made  the  capital  mistake  of  under- 
valuing the  intelligence  of  his  audience.  They  had, 
doubtless,  been  impressed  when  Moses,  as  a  showman, 
had  presented  his  spectacle,  for  Moses  had  a  com- 
manding presence  and  he  had  chosen  a  wonderful  lo- 
cality for  his  performance.  But  once  he  was  gone 
the  effect  of  what  he  had  done  evaporated  and  they 
began  to  value  the  exhibition  for  what  it  really  was. 
As  men  of  common  sense,  said  they  to  one  another, 
why  should  we  linger  here,  if  Moses  has  played  this 
trick  upon  us?  Why  not  go  back  to  Egypt,  where  at 
least  we  can  get  something  to  eat?  So  they  decided 
to  bribe  Aaron,  who  was  venal  and  would  do  anything 
for  money. 

"And  when  the  people  saw  that  Moses  delayed  to 
come  down  out  of  the  mount,  the  people  gathered 
themselves  together  unto  Aaron,  and  said  unto  him, 
Up,  make  us  gods,  which  shall  go  before  us;  for  as  for 
this  Moses,  the  man  that  brought  us  up  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt,  we  wot  not  what  is  become  of  him." 

When  Aaron  heard  this  proposition  he  showed  no 


64  PREFACE. 

objection  to  accept,  provided  the  people  made  it 
worth  his  while  to  risk  the  wrath  of  Moses;  so  he 
answered  forthwith,  "Break  off  the  golden  earrings, 
which  are  in  the  ears  of  your  wives,  of  your  sons,  and 
of  your  daughters,  and  bring  them  unto  me." 

These  were  the  ornaments  of  which  the  departing 
Israelites  had  spoiled  the  Egyptians  and  they  must 
have  been  of  very  considerable  value.  At  all  events, 
Aaron  took  them  and  melted  them  and  made  them 
into  the  image  of  a  calf,  such  as  he  had  been  used  to 
see  in  Egypt.  The  calf  was  probably  made  of  wood 
and  laminated  with  gold.  Sir  G.  Wilkinson  thinks 
that  the  calf  was  made  to  represent  Mnevis,  with 
whose  worship  the  Israelites  had  been  familiar  in 
Egypt.  Then  Aaron  proclaimed  a  feast  for  the  next 
day  in  honor  of  this  calf  and  said,  "To-morrow  is  a 
feast  to  the  Lord,"  and  they  said,  "These  be  thy  gods, 
O  Israel,  which  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt." 

"And  they  rose  up  early  on  the  morrow,  and  offered 
burnt  offerings,  and  brought  peace  offerings:  and  the 
people  sat  down  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  rose  up  to 
play." 

It  was  not  very  long  before  Moses  became  suspicious 
that  all  was  not  right  in  the  camp,  and  he  prepared  to 
go  down,  taking  the  two  tables  of  testimony  in  his 
hands.  These  stone  tablets  were  covered  with  writing 
on  both  sides,  which  must  have  taken  a  long  time  to  en- 
grave considering  that  Moses  was  on  a  bare  mountain- 
side with  probably  nobody  to  help  but  Joshua.  Of 


PREFACE.  65 

course  all  that  made  this  weary  expedition  worth  the 
doing  was  that,  as  the  Bible  says,  "the  tables  were" 
to  pass  for  "the  work  of  God,  and  the  writing  was  the 
writing  of  God."  Accordingly,  it  is  not  surprising  that 
as  Moses  "came  nigh  unto  the  camp,"  and  he  "saw  the 
calf,  and  the  dancing":  that  his  "anger  waxed  hot,  and 
he  cast  the  tables  out  of  his  hands,  and  brake  them 
beneath  the  mount. 

"And  he  took  the  calf  which  they  had  made,  and 
burnt  it  in  the  fire,  and  ground  it  to  powder,  and 
strewed  it  upon  the  water,  and  made  the  children  of 
Israel  drink  of  it. 

"And  Moses  said  unto  Aaron,  What  did  this  people 
unto  thee,  that  thou  hast  brought  so  great  a  sin  upon 
them? 

"And  Aaron  said,  Let  not  the  anger  of  my  lord  wax 
hot:  thou  knowest  the  people,  that  they  are  set  on  mis- 
chief. 

"For  they  said  unto  me,  Make  us  gods,  which  shall 
go  before  us:  for  as  for  this  Moses,  the  man  that 
brought  us  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  we  wot  not 
what  is  become  of  him. 

"And  I  said  unto  them,  Whosoever  hath  any  gold, 
let  them  break  it  off.  So  they  gave  it  me:  then  I  cast 
it  into  the  fire,  and  there  came  out  this  calf. 

"And  when  Moses  saw  that  the  people  were  naked; 
(for  Aaron  had  made  them  naked  unto  their  shame 
among  their  enemies:) "  that  is  to  say,  the  people  had 
come  to  the  feast  unarmed,  and  without  the  slightest 
fear  or  suspicion  of  a  possible  attack;  then  Moses  saw 


66  PREFA  CE. 

his  opportunity  and  placed  himself  in  a  gate  of  the 
camp,  and  said:  "Who  is  on  the  Lord's  side?  Let  him 
come  unto  me.  And  all  the  sons  of  Levi  gathered  them- 
selves together  unto  him. 

"And  he  said  unto  them,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel,  Put  every  man  his  sword  by  his  side,  and  go  in 
and  out  from  gate  to  gate  throughout  the  camp,  and 
slay  every  man  his  brother,  and  every  man  his  com- 
panion, and  every  man  his  neighbour. 

"And  the  children  of  Levi  did  according  to  the  word 
of  Moses:  and  there  fell  of  the  people  that  day  about 
three  thousand  men." 

/  There  are  few  acts  in  all  recorded  history,  including 
the  awful  massacres  of  the  Albigenses  by  Simon  de 
Montfort  and  the  Abbot  Arnold,  more  indefensible 
than  this  wholesale  murder  by  Moses  of  several  thou- 
sand people  who  had  trusted  him,  and  whom  he  had 
entrusted  to  the  care  of  his  own  brother,  who  partici- 
pated' in  their  crime,  supposing  that  they  had  com- 
mitted any  crime  saving  the  crime  of  tiring  of  his 
dictatorship. 

The  effect  of  this  massacre  was  to  put  Moses,  for  the 
rest  of  his  life,  in  the  hands  of  the  Levites  with  Aaron  at 
their  head,  for  only  by  having  a  body  of  men  stained 
with  his  own  crimes  and  devoted  to  his  fortunes  could 
Moses  thenceforward  hope  to  carry  his  adventure  to  a 
good  end.  Otherwise  he  faced  certain  and  ignominious 
failure.  His  preliminary  task,  therefore,  was  to  devise 
for  the  Levites  a  reward  which  would  content  them. 
His  first  step  in  this  direction  was  to  go  back  to  the 


PREFACE.  67 

mountain  and  seek  a  new  inspiration  and  a  revelation 
more  suited  to  the  existing  conditions  than  the  revela- 
tion conveyed  before  the  golden  calf  incident. 

Up  to  this  time  there  is  nothing  in  Jewish  history  to 
show  that  the  priesthood  was  developing  into  a  priv- 
ileged and  hereditary  caste.  With  the  consecration 
of  Aaron  as  high  priest  the  process  began.  Moses  spent 
another  six  weeks  in  seclusion  on  the  mount.  And  as 
soon  as  he  returned  to  the  camp  he  proclaimed  how  the 
people  should  build  and  furnish  a  sanctuary  in  which 
the  priesthood  should  perform  its  functions.  These 
directions  were  very  elaborate  and  detailed,  and  part 
of  the  furnishings  of  the  sanctuary  consisted  in  the 
splendid  and  costly  garments  for  Aaron  and  his  sons 
"for  glory  and  for  beauty." 

"And  thou  shalt  put  upon  Aaron  the  holy  garments, 
and  anoint  him,  and  sanctify  him;  that  he  may  minis- 
ter unto  me  in  the  priest's  office.  And  thou  shalt  bring 
his  sons,  and  clothe  them  with  coats:  And  thou  shalt 
anoint  them,  as  thou  didst  anoint  their  father,  that  they 
may  minister  unto  me  in  the  priest's  office:  for  their 
anointing  shall  surely  be  an  everlasting  priesthood, 
throughout  their  generations. 

"Thus  did  Moses:  according  to  all  that  the  Lord 
commanded  him,  so  did  he." 

It  followed  automatically  that,  with  the  creation  of 
a  great  vested  interest  centred  in  an  hereditary  caste 
of  priests,  the  pecuniary  burden  on  the  people  was  cor- 
respondingly increased  and  that  thenceforward  Moses 
became  nothing  but  the  representative  of  that  vested 


68  PREFACE. 

interest:  as  reactionary  and  selfish  as  all  such  repre- 
sentatives must  be.  How  selfish  and  how  reactionary 
may  readily  be  estimated  by  glancing  at  Numbers 
xvin,  where  God's  directions  are  given  to  Aaron  touch- 
ing what  he  was  to  claim  for  himself,  and  what  the 
Levites  were  to  take  as  their  wages  for  service.  It  was 
indeed  liberal  compensation.  A  good  deal  more  than 
much  of  the  congregation  thought  such  services  worth. 

In  the  first  place,  Aaron  and  the  Levites  with  him 
for  their  service  "of  the  tabernacle"  were  to  have  "all 
the  tenth  in  Israel  for  an  inheritance."  But  this  was 
a  small  part  of  their  compensation.  There  were  be- 
side perquisites,  especially  those  connected  with  the 
sacrifices  which  the  people  were  constrained  to  make 
on  the  most  trifling  occasions;  as,  for  example,  when- 
ever they  became  unclean,  through  some  accident,  as 
by  touching  a  dead  body: 

"This  shall  be  thine  of  the  most  holy  things,  reserved 
from  the  fire:  every  oblation  of  their's,  every  meat 
offering  of  their's,  and  every  sin  offering  of  their's,  and 
every  trespass  offering  of  their's,  which  they  shall  ren- 
der unto  me,  shall  be  most  holy  for  thee  and  thy  sons. 

"  In  the  most  holy  place  shalt  thou  eat  it;  every  male 
shall  eat  it;  it  shall  be  holy  unto  thee. 

"And  this  is  thine.  ...  All  the  best  of  the  oil,  and  all 
the  best  of  the  wine,  and  of  the  wheat,  the  firstfruits  of 
them  which  they  shall  offer  unto  the  Lord,  them  have 
I  given  thee;  .  .  .  every  one  that  is  clean  in  thine  house 
shall  eat  of  it. 

"Everything  devoted  in  Israel  shall  be  thine 


PREFACE.  69 

"All  the  heave  offerings  of  the  holy  things,  which 
the  children  of  Israel  offer  unto  the  Lord,  have  I  given 
thee,  and  thy  sons  and  thy  daughters  with  thee,  by  a 
statute  forever:  it  is  a  covenant  of  salt  forever  before 
the  Lord  unto  thee  and  to  thy  seed  with  thee." 

Also,  on  the  taking  of  a  census,  such  as  occurred  at 
Sinai,  Aaron  received  a  most  formidable  perquisite. 

The  Levites  were  not  to  be  numbered;  but  there  was 
to  be  a  complicated  system  of  redemption  at  the  rate 
of  "five  shekels  by  the  poll,  after  the  shekel  of  the 
sanctuary." 

"And  Moses  took  the  redemption  money  of  them 
that  were  over  and  above  them  that  were  redeemed  by 
the  Levites:  Of  the  first-born  of  the  children  of  Israel 
took  he  the  money;  a  thousand  three  hundred  and 
three  score  and  five  shekels,  after  the  shekel  of  the 
sanctuary;  And  Moses  gave  the  money  of  them  that 
were  redeemed  unto  Aaron  and  to  his  sons." 

Assuming  the  shekel  of  those  days  to  have  weighed 
two  hundred  and  twenty-four  grains  of  silver,  its  value 
in  our  currency  would  have  been  about  fifty-five  cents, 
but  its  purchasing  power,  twelve  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  would  have  been,  at  the  very  most  moderate 
estimate,  at  least  ten  for  one,  which  would  have 
amounted  to  between  six  and  seven  thousand  dollars  in 
hard  cash  for  no  service  whatever,  which,  considering 
that  the  Israelites  were  a  wandering  nomadic  horde  in 
the  wilderness,  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  a  pretty  heavy 
charge  for  the  pleasure  of  observing  the  performances 
of  Aaron  and  his  sons,  in  their  gorgeous  garments. 


70  PREFACE. 

Also,  under  any  sedentary  administration  it  followed 
that  the  high  priest  must  become  the  most  consider- 
able personage  in  the  community,  as  well  as  one  of  the 
richest.  And  thus  as  payment  for  the  loyalty  to  himself 
of  the  Levites  during  the  massacre  of  the  golden  calf, 
Moses  created  a  theocratic  aristocracy  headed  by  Aaron 
and  his  sons,  and  comprising  the  whole  tribe  of  Levi, 
whose  advancement  in  fortune  could  not  fail  to  create 
discontent.  It  did  so:  a  discontent  which  culminated 
very  shortly  after  in  the  rebellion  of  Korah,  which 
brought  on  a  condition  of  things  at  Kadesh  which  con- 
tributed to  make  the  position  of  Moses  intolerable. 

Moses  was  one  of  those  administrators  who  were 
particularly  reprobated  by  Saint  Paul;  Men  who  "do 
evil,"  as  in  the  slaughter  of  the  f casters  who  set  up  the 
golden  calf,  "that  good  may  come,"  and  "whose  dam- 
nation," therefore,  "is  just."  l 

And  Moses  wrought  thus  through  ambition,  because, 
though  personally  disinterested,  he  could  not  endure 
having  his  will  thwarted.  Aaron  had  nearly  the  con- 
verse of  such  a  temperament.  Aaron  appears  to  have 
had  few  or  no  convictions;  it  mattered  little  to  him 
whether  he  worshipped  Jehovah  on  Sinai  or  the  golden 
calf  at  the  foot  of  Sinai,  provided  he  were  paid  at  his 
own  price.  And  he  took  care  to  exact  a  liberal  price. 
Also  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  the  way  in  which 
Moses  behaved  to  him  is  that  Moses  understood 
what  manner  of  man  he  was. 

Jethro  stood  higher  in  the  estimation  of  Moses,  and 
1  Romans  ra,  8. 


PREFACE.  71 

Moses  did  his  best  to  keep  Jethro  with  him,  but,  appar- 
ently, Jethro  had  watched  Moses  closely  and  was  not 
satisfied  with  his  conduct  of  the  exodus.  On  the  eve  of 
departure  from  Sinai,  just  as  the  Israelites  were  break- 
ing camp,  Moses  sought  out  Jethro  and  said  to  him; 
"  We  are  journeying  unto  the  place  of  which  the  Lord 
said,  I  will  give  it  you;  come  thou  with  us,  and  we  will 
do  thee  good;  for  the  Lord  has  spoken  good  concerning 
Israel. 

"And  he  said  unto  him,  I  will  not  go;  but  I  will  de- 
part to  name  own  land,  and  to  my  kindred.'* 

Not  discouraged,  Moses  kept  on  urging:  "Leave  us 
not,  I  pray  thee;  forasmuch  as  thou  knowest  how  we 
are  to  encamp  in  the  wilderness,  and  thou  mayest  be 
to  us  instead  of  eyes. 

"And  it  shall  be,  if  thou  go  with  us,  yea,  it  shall  be, 
that  what  goodness  the  Lord  shall  do  unto  us,  the  same 
will  we  do  unto  thee."  It  has  been  inferred  from  a 
passage  in  Judges,1  that  Moses  induced  Jethro  to  re- 
consider his  refusal  and  that  he  did  accompany  the  con- 
gregation in  its  march  to  Kadesh,  but,  on  the  whole, 
the  text  of  the  Bible  fails  to  bear  out  such  in- 
ference, for  there  is  no  subsequent  mention  of  Jethro 
in  the  books  which  treat  directly  of  the  trials  of  the 
journey,  although  there  would  seem  to  have  been 
abundant  occasion  for  Moses  to  have  called  upon 
Jethro  for  aid  had  Jethro  been  present.  In  his  appar- 
ent absence  the  march  began,  under  the  leadership 
of  the  Lord  and  Moses,  very  much  missing  Jethro. 
1  Judges  i,  16. 


72  PREFACE. 

They  departed  from  the  mount:  "And  the  cloud  of 
the  Lord  was  upon  them  by  day,"  when  they  left  the 
camp  "to  search  out  a  resting-place."  Certainly,  on 
this  occasion,  the  Lord  selected  a  poor  spot  for  the  pur- 
pose, quite  different  from  such  an  one  as  Jethro 
would  have  been  expected  to  have  pointed  out;  for  the 
children  of  Israel  began  complaining  mightily,  so  much 
so  that  it  displeased  the  Lord  who  sent  fire  into  the  ut- 
termost parts  of  the  camp,  where  it  consumed  them. 

"And  the  people  cried  unto  Moses,  and  when  Moses 
prayed  unto  the  Lord,  the  fire  was  quenched." 

This  suggestion  of  a  divine  fire  under  the  control  of 
Moses  opens  an  interesting  speculation. 

The  Magi,  who  were  the  priests  of  the  Median  reli- 
gion, greatly  developed  the  practices  of  incantation 
and  sorcery.  Among  these  rites  they  "pretended  to 
have  the  power  of  making  fire  descend  on  to  their  al- 
tars by  means  of  magical  ceremonies."  l  Moses  ap- 
pears to  have  been  very  fond  of  this  particular  miracle. 
It  is  mentioned  as  having  been  effective  here  at  Ta- 
berah,  and  it  was  the  supposed  weapon  employed  to 
suppress  Korah's  rebellion.  Moses  was  indeed  a  pow- 
erful enchanter.  His  relations  with  all  the  priestcraft 
of  central  Asia  were  intimate,  and  if  the  Magi  had 
secrets  which  were  likely  to  be  of  use  to  him  in  main- 
taining his  position  among  the  Jews,  the  inference  is 
that  he  would  certainly  have  used  them  to  the  utmost; 
as  he  did  the  brazen  serpent,  the  ram's  horns  at  Sinai, 
and  the  like.  But  in  spite  of  all  his  miracles  Moses 
1  Lenormant,  Chaldean  Magic,  226,  238. 


PREFACE.  73 

found  his  task  too  heavy,  and  he  frankly  confessed 
that  he  wished  himself  dead. 

"Then  Moses  heard  the  people  weep  throughout 
their  families  .  .  .  and  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was 
kindled  greatly;  Moses  also  was  displeased. 

"And  Moses  said  unto  the  Lord,  Wherefore  hast 
thou  afflicted  thy  servant?  .  .  .  that  thou  layest  the 
burden  of  all  this  people  upon  me? 

"Have  I  conceived  all  this  people?  have  I  begotten 
them,  that  thou  shouldest  say  unto  me,  Carry  them 
in  thy  bosom,  as  a  nursing  father  beareth  the  sucking 
child,  unto  the  land  which  thou  swarest  unto  their 
fathers? 

"Whence  should  I  have  flesh  to  give  unto  all  this 
people?  for  they  weep  unto  me  saying,  Give  us  flesh 
that  we  may  eat. 

"I  am  not  able  to  bear  all  this  people  alone,  because 
it  is  too  heavy  for  me. 

"And  if  thou  deal  thus  with  me,  kill  me,  I  pray  thee, 
out  of  hand,  if  I  have  found  favour  in  thy  sight;  and 
let  me  not  see  my  wretchedness." 

Leaving  aside  for  the  moment  all  our  childish  pre- 
ventions, and  considering  this  evidence  in  the  cold 
light  of  history,  it  becomes  tolerably  evident  that 
Moses  had  now  reached  the  turning-point  in  his  career, 
the  point  whither  he  had  inexorably  tended  since  the 
day  on  which  he  bid  good-bye  to  Jethro  to  visit  Egypt 
and  attempt  to  gain  control  of  the  exodus,  and  the 
point  to  which  all  optimists  must  come  who  resolve  to 
base  a  religious  or  a  political  movement  on  the  manip- 


74  PREFACE. 

ulation  of  the  supernatural.  However  pure  and  dis- 
interested the  motives  of  such  persons  may  be  at  the 
outset,  and  however  thoroughly  they  may  believe  in 
themselves  and  in  their  mission,  sooner  or  later,  to 
compass  their  purpose,  they  must  resort  to  deception 
and  thus  become  impostors  who  flourish  on  the  cre- 
dulity of  their  dupes. 

Moses,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  had  to  make  such 
demands  on  the  credulity  of  his  followers  that  even 
those  who  were  bound  to  him  by  the  strongest  ties  of 
affection  and  self-interest  were  alienated,  and  those 
without  such  commanding  motives  to  submit  to  his 
claim  to  exact  from  them  absolute  obedience,  revolted, 
and  demanded  that  he  should  be  deposed.  The  first 
serious  trouble  with  which  Moses  had  to  contend 
came  to  a  head  at  Hazeroth,  the  second  station  after 
leaving  Sinai.  The  supposed  spot  is  still  used  as  a 
watering-place.  There  Miriam  and  Aaron  attacked 
Moses  because  they  were  jealous  of  his  wife,  whom 
they  decried  as  an  "Ethiopian."  And  they  said, 
"Hath  the  Lord  indeed  spoken  only  by  Moses?  hath 
he  not  spoken  also  by  us?"  Instantly,  it  became  evi- 
dent to  Moses  that  if  this  denial  of  his  superior  inti- 
macy with  God  were  to  be  permitted,  his  supremacy 
must  end.  Accordingly  the  Lord  came  down  "in  the 
pillar  of  the  cloud,  and  stood  in  the  door  of  the  taber- 
nacle, and  called  Aaron  and  Miriam:  and  they  both 
came  forth."  And  the  Lord  explained  that  he  had  no 
objection  to  a  prophet;  if  any  one  among  the  congre- 
gation had  an  ambition  to  be  a  prophet  he  would  com- 


PREFACE.  75 

municate  with  him  in  a  dream;  but  there  must  always 
be  a  wide  difference  between  such  a  man  or  woman  and 
Moses  with  whom  he  would  "speak  mouth  to  mouth, 
even  apparently,  and  not  in  dark  speeches."  And 
then  God  demanded  irritably,  "Wherefore,  then,  were 
ye  not  afraid  to  speak  against  my  servant  Moses?" 
"  Afterward  the  cloud,"  according  to  the  Bible,  de- 
parted and  God  with  it. 

Ever  since  the  dawn  of  time  the  infliction  of  or 
the  cure  of  disease  has  been  the  stronghold  of  the 
necromancer,  the  wise  man,  the  magician,  the  saint, 
the  prophet  and  the  priest,  and  Moses  was  no  excep- 
tion to  the  rule,  only  hitherto  he  had  had  no  occasion 
to  display  his  powers  of  this  kind.  Nevertheless,  among 
the  Hebrews  of  the  exodus,  the  field  for  this  form 
of  miracle  was  large.  Leprosy  was  very  prevalent,  so 
much  so  that  in  Egypt  the  Jews  were  called  a  nation 
of  lepers.  And  in  the  camp  the  regulations  touching 
them  were  strict  and  numerous.  But  the  Jews  were 
always  a  dirty  race. 

In  chapter  xui  of  Leviticus,  elaborate  directions  are 
given  as  to  how  the  patient  shall  be  brought  before 
Aaron  himself,  or  at  least  some  other  of  the  priests, 
who  was  to  examine  the  sore  and,  if  it  proved  to  be  a 
probable  case  of  leprosy,  the  patient  was  to  be  excluded 
from  the  camp  for  a  week.  At  the  end  of  that  time 
the  disease,  if  malignant,  was  supposed  to  show  signs 
of  spreading,  in  which  case  there  was  no  cure  and  the 
patient  was  condemned  to  civil  death.  On  the  con- 
trary, if  no  virulent  symptoms  developed  during 


76  PREFACE. 

the  week,  the  patient  was  pronounced  clean  and  re- 
turned to  ordinary  life. 

The  miracle  in  the  case  of  Miriam  was  this:  When 
the  cloud  departed  from  off  the  tabernacle,  Miriam  was 
found  to  be  "leprous,  white  as  snow,"  just  as  Moses' 
hand  was  found  to  be  white  with  leprosy  after  his  con- 
versation with  the  Lord  at  the  burning  bush.  Upon 
this  Aaron,  who  had  been  as  guilty  as  Miriam,  and 
was  proportionately  nervous,  made  a  prayer  to  Moses : 
"Alas,  my  lord,  I  beseech  thee,  lay  not  the  sin  upon 
us,  wherein  we  have  done  foolishly.  .  .  .  Let  her  not  be 
as  one  dead. 

"And  Moses  cried  unto  the  Lord,  saying,  Heal  her 
now,  O  God,  I  beseech  thee." 

But  the  Lord  replied:  "If  her  father  had  but  spit  in 
her  face,  should  she  not  be  ashamed  seven  days?  Let 
her  be  shut  out  from  the  camp  seven  days,  and  after 
that  let  her  be  received  in  again." 

This  was  the  Mosaic  system  of  discipline.  And  it 
was  serious  for  all  parties  concerned.  Evidently  it 
was  very  serious  for  Miriam,  who  had  to  leave  her  tent 
and  be  exiled  to  some  spot  in  the  desert,  where  she  had 
to  shift  for  herself.  We  all  know  the  almost  intoler- 
able situation  of  those  unfortunates  who,  in  the  East, 
are  excluded  from  social  intercourse,  and  sit  without 
the  gate,  and  are  permitted  to  approach  no  one.  But 
it  was  also  a  serious  infliction  for  the  congregation, 
since  Miriam  was  a  personage  of  consequence,  and  had 
to  be  waited  for.  That  is  to  say,  a  million  or  two  of 
people  had  to  delay  their  pilgrimage  until  Moses 


PREFACE.  77 

had  determined  how  much  punishment  Miriam  de- 
served for  her  insubordination,  and  this  was  a  question 
which  lay  altogether  within  the  discretion  of  Moses. 
In  that  age  there  were  at  least  seven  varieties  of  erup- 
tions which  could  hardly,  if  at  all,  be  distinguished,  in 
their  early  stages,  from  leprosy,  and  it  was  left  to 
Moses  to  say  whether  or  not  Miriam  had  been  attacked 
by  true  leprosy  or  not.  There  was  no  one,  apparently, 
to  question  his  judgment,  for,  since  Jethro  had  left 
the  camp,  there  was  no  one  to  controvert  the  Mosaic 
opinion  on  matters  such  as  these.  Doubtless  Moses 
was  content  to  give  Aaron  and  Miriam  a  fright;  but 
also  Moses  intended  to  make  them  understand  that 
they  lay  absolutely  at  his  mercy. 

After  this  outbreak  of  discontent  had  been  thus  sum- 
marily suppressed  and  Miriam  had  been  again  received 
as  "clean,"  the  caravan  resumed  its  march  and  entered 
into  the  wilderness  of  Paran,  which  adjoined  Palestine, 
and  from  whence  an  invasion  of  Canaan,  if  one  were 
to  be  attempted,  would  be  organized.  Accordingly 
Moses  appointed  a  reconnaissance,  who  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Bible  are  called  "spies,"  to  examine  the 
country,  report  its  condition,  and  decide  whether  an 
attack  were  feasible. 

On  this  occasion  Moses  seems  to  have  remembered 
the  lesson  he  learned  at  Sinai.  He  did  not  undertake 
to  leave  the  camp  himself  for  a  long  interval.  He  sent 
the  men  whom  he  supposed  he  could  best  trust,  among 
whom  were  Joshua  and  Caleb.  These  men,  who  cor- 
responded to  what,  in  a  modern  army,  would  be  called 


78  PREFACE. 

the  general-staff,  were  not  sent  to  manufacture  a  re- 
port which  they  might  have  reason  to  suppose  would  be 
pleasing  to  Moses,  but  to  state  precisely  what  they 
saw  and  heard  together  with  their  conclusions  thereon, 
that  they  might  aid  their  commander  in  an  arduous 
campaign;  and  this  duty  they  seem,  honestly  enough, 
to  have  performed.  But  this  was  very  far  from  satis- 
fying Moses,  who  wanted  to  make  a  strenuous  offen- 
sive, and  yet  sought  some  one  else  to  take  the  respon- 
sibility therefor. 

The  spies  were  absent  six  weeks  and  when  they  re- 
turned were  divided  in  opinion.  They  all  agreed  that 
Canaan  was  a  good  land,  and,  in  verity,  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey.  But  the  people,  most  of  them  thought, 
were  too  strong  to  be  successfully  attacked.  "The 
cities  were  walled  and  very  great,"  and  moreover  "we 
saw  the  children  of  Anak  there." 

"The  Amalekites  dwell  in  the  land  of  the  south;  and 
the  Hittites,  and  the  Jebusites,  and  the  Amorites, 
dwell  in  the  mountains;  and  the  Canaanites  dwell  by 
the  sea,  and  by  the  coast  of  Jordan. 

"And  Caleb  stilled  the  people  before  Moses,  and 
said,  Let  us  go  up  at  once,  .  .  .  for  we  are  well  able  to 
overcome  it. 

"But  the  men  that  went  up  with  him  said,  We  be 
not  able  to  go  up  against  the  people;  for  they  are 
stronger  than  we. 

"And  they  brought  up  an  evil  report  of  the  land 
which  they  had  searched,  .  .  .  saying,  ...  all  the  people 
that  we  saw  in  it  are  men  of  great  stature. 


PREFACE.  79 

"And  there  we  saw  the  giants,  the  sons  of  Anak,  .  .  . 
and  we  were  in  our  own  sight  as  grasshoppers,  and  so 
were  we  in  their  sight." 

Had  Moses  been  gifted  with  military  talent,  or  with 
any  of  the  higher  instincts  of  the  soldier,  he  would  have 
arranged  to  have  received  this  report  in  private  and 
would  then  have  acted  as  he  thought  best.  Above 
all  he  would  have  avoided  anything  like  a  council  of 
war  by  the  whole  congregation,  for  a  vast  popular 
meeting  of  that  kind  was  certain  to  become  unman- 
ageable the  moment  a  division  appeared  in  their  com- 
mand, upon  a  difficult  question  of  policy. 

Moses  did  just  the  opposite.  He  convened  the 
people  to  hear  the  report  of  the  "spies."  And  im- 
mediately the  majority  became  dangerously  depressed, 
not  to  say  mutinous. 

"And  all  the  congregation  lifted  up  their  voice,  and 
cried;  and  the  people  wept  that  night. 

"And  all  the  children  of  Israel  murmured  against 
Moses  and  against  Aaron:  and  the  whole  congrega- 
tion said  unto  them,  Would  God  that  we  had  died  in 
the  land  of  Egypt!  Or  would  God  we  had  died  in  this 
wilderness!  .  .  . 

"And  they  said  one  to  another,  Let  us  make  a  cap- 
tain, and  let  us  return  into  Egypt. 

"Then  Moses  and  Aaron  fell  on  their  faces  before 
all  the  assembly  of  the  congregation  of  the  children  of 
Israel." 

But  Joshua,  who  was  a  soldier,  when  Moses  thus 
somewhat  ignominiously  collapsed,  retained  his  pres- 


80  PREFACE. 

ence  of  mind  and  his  energy.  He  and  Caleb  "rent 
their  clothes,"  and  reiterated  their  advice. 

"And  they  spake  unto  all  the  company  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel,  saying,  The  land  which  we  passed 
through  to  search  it,  is  an  exceeding  good  land. 

"If  the  Lord  delight  in  us,  then  he  will  bring  us  into 
this  land,  and  give  it  us;  a  land  which  floweth  with 
milk  and  honey. 

"Only  rebel  not  ye  against  the  Lord,  neither  fear 
ye  the  people  of  the  land;  for  they  are  bread  for  us: 
their  defence  is  departed  from  them  .  .  .  fear  them  not. 

"But  all  the  congregation  bade  stone  them  with 
stones." 

By  this  time  Moses  seems  to  have  recovered  some 
composure.  Enough,  at  least,  to  repeat  certain  violent 
threats  of  the  "Lord." 

Nothing  is  so  impressive  in  all  this  history  as  the  dif- 
ference between  Moses  when  called  upon  to  take 
responsibility  as  a  military  commander,  and  Moses 
when,  not  to  mince  matters,  he  acted  as  a  quack.  On 
the  one  hand,  he  was  all  vacillation,  timidity,  and  ir- 
ritability. On  the  other,  all  temerity  and  effrontery. 

In  this  particular  emergency,  which  touched  his 
very  life,  Moses  vented  his  disappointment  and  vexa- 
tion in  a  number  of  interviews  which  he  pretended  to 
have  had  with  the  "Lord,"  and  which  he  retailed  to  the 
congregation,  just  at  the  moment  when  they  needed, 
as  Joshua  perceived,  to  be  steadied  and  encouraged. 

"How  long,"  vociferated  the  Lord,  when  Moses  had 
got  back  his  power  of  speech,  "will  this  people  provoke 


PREFACE.  81 

me?  and  how  long  will  it  be  ere  they  believe  me,  for  all 
the  signs  which  I  have  shewed  among  them? 

"I  will  smite  them  with  the  pestilence,  and  disin- 
herit them,  and  will  make  of  thee  a  greater  nation  and 
mightier  than  they." 

But  when  Moses  had  cooled  a  little  and  came  to  re- 
flect upon  what  he  had  made  the  "Lord"  say,  he  fell 
into  his  ordinary  condition  of  hesitancy.  Supposing 
some  great  disaster  should  happen  to  the  Jews  at  Ka- 
desh,  which  lay  not  so  very  far  from  the  Egyptian  bor- 
der, the  Egyptians  would  certainly  hear  of  it,  and  in 
that  case  the  Egyptian  army  might  pursue  and  capture 
Moses.  Such  a  contingency  was  not  to  be  contem- 
plated, and  accordingly  Moses  began  to  make  reserva- 
tions. It  must  be  remembered  that  all  these  osten- 
sible conversations  with  the  "Lord"  went  on  in  public; 
that  is  to  say,  Moses  proffered  his  advice  to  the  Lord 
aloud,  and  then  retailed  his  version  of  the  answer  he 
received. 

"Now  if  thou  shalt  kill  all  this  people  as  one  man, 
then  the  nations  which  have  heard  the  fame  of  thee  will 
speak,  saying, 

"Because  the  Lord  was  not  able  to  bring  this  people 
into  the  land  which  he  sware  unto  them,  therefore  he 
hath  slain  them  in  the  wilderness.  .  .  . 

"  Pardon,  I  beseech  thee,  the  iniquity  of  this  people 
according  unto  the  greatness  of  thy  mercy,  and  as  thou 
hast  forgiven  this  people  from  Egypt  even  until  now. 

"And  the  Lord  said,  I  have  pardoned  according  to 
thy  word." 


82  PREFACE. 

Had  Moses  left  the  matter  there  it  would  not  have 
been  so  bad,  but  he  could  not  contain  his  vexation,  be- 
cause his  staff  had  not  divined  his  wishes.  Those  men, 
though  they  had  done  their  strict  duty  only,  must  be 
punished,  so  he  thought,  to  maintain  his  ascendancy. 

Of  the  twelve  "spies"  whom  Moses  had  sent  into 
Canaan  to  report  to  him,  ten  had  incurred  his  bitter 
animosity  because  they  failed  to  render  him  such  a  re- 
port as  would  sustain  him  before  the  people  in  making 
the  campaign  of  invasion  to  which  he  felt  himself 
pledged,  and  on  the  success  of  which  his  reputation 
depended.  Of  these  ten  men,  Moses,  to  judge  by  the 
character  of  his  demands  upon  the  Lord,  thought  it  in- 
cumbent on  him  to  make  an  example,  in  order  to  sus- 
tain his  own  credit. 

To  simply  exclude  these  ten  spies  from  Palestine,  as 
he  proposed  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  congregation, 
would  hardly  be  enough,  for  the  rest  of  the  Hebrews 
were,  at  most,  passive,  but  these  ten  had  wilfully  ig- 
nored the  will  of  Moses,  or,  as  he  expressed  it,  of  the 
Lord.  Therefore  it  was  the  Lord's  duty,  as  Moses  saw 
it,  to  punish  them.  And  this  Moses  proposed  that 
the  Lord  should  do  in  a  prompt  and  awful  manner: 
the  lesson  being  pointed  by  the  immunity  of  Joshua 
and  Caleb,  the  two  spies  who  had  had  the  wit  to  divine 
the  will  of  Moses.  Therefore,  all  ten  of  these  men  died 
of  the  plague  while  the  congregation  lay  encamped  at 
Kadesh,  though  Joshua  and  Caleb  remained  immune. 

Moses,  as  the  commanding  general  of  an  attacking 
army,  took  a  course  diametrically  opposed  to  that 


PREFACE.  83 

of  Joshua,  and  calculated  to  be  fatal  to  victory.  He 
vented  his  irritation  in  a  series  of  diatribes  which  he 
attributed  to  the  "Lord,"  and  which  discouraged  and 
confused  his  men  at  the  moment  when  their  morale  was 
essential  to  success. 

Therefore,  the  Lord,  according  to  Moses,  went  on: 

"But  as  truly  as  I  live,  all  the  earth  shall  be  filled 
with  the  glory  of  the  Lord. 

"Because  all  those  men  which  have  seen  my  glory, 
and  my  miracles,  which  I  did  in  Egypt  and  in  the  wil- 
derness, have  tempted  me  now  these  ten  times,  and 
have  not  hearkened  to  my  voice; 

"Surely  they  shall  not  see  the  land  which  I  swear 
unto  their  fathers,  neither  shall  any  of  them  that  pro- 
voked me  see  it: 

"But  my  servant  Caleb,  because  he  had  another 
spirit  with  him,  and  hath  followed  me  fully,  him  will 
I  bring  into  the  land  wherein  to  he  went;  ..." 

Having  said  all  this,  and,  as  far  as  might  be,  disor- 
ganized the  army,  Moses  surrendered  suddenly  his 
point.  He  made  the  "Lord "  go  on  to  command :  "To- 
morrow turn  you,  and  get  you  into  the  wilderness  by 
the  way  of  the  Red  Sea."  But,  not  even  yet  content, 
Moses  assured  them  that  this  retreat  should  profit 
them  nothing. 

"And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  and  unto  Aaron, 
saying,  How  long  shall  I  bear  with  this  evil  congrega- 
tion, which  murmur  against  me?  I  have  heard  the 
murmurings  of  the  children  of  Israel,  which  they  mur- 
mur against  me."  And  the  Lord  continued: 


84  PREFACE. 

"Say  unto  them,  As  truly  as  I  live,  ...  as  ye  have 
spoken  in  mine  ears,  so  will  I  do  to  you. 

"Your  carcases  shall  fall  in  this  wilderness;  and  all 
that  were  numbered  of  you,  .  .  .  from  twenty  years  old 
and  upward,  which  have  murmured  against  me, 

"Doubtless  ye  shall  not  come  into  the  land.  .  .  . 

"But  as  for  you,  your  carcases,  they  shall  fall  in  this 
wilderness.  .  .  . 

"And  the  men  which  Moses  sent  to  search  the  land, 
who  returned,  and  made  all  the  congregation  to  mur- 
mur against  him,  by  bringing  up  a  slander  upon  the 
land,  — 

"Even  those  men  that  did  bring  up  the  evil  report 
upon  the  land,  died  by  the  plague  before  the  Lord. 

"But  Joshua  .  .  .  and  Caleb,  .  .  .  which  were  of  the 
men  that  went  to  search  the  land,  lived  still. 

"And  Moses  told  these  sayings  unto  all  the  children 
of  Israel  and  the  people  mourned  greatly." 

The  congregation  were  now  completely  out  of  hand. 
They  knew  not  what  Moses  wanted  to  do,  nor  did  they 
comprehend  what  Moses  was  attempting  to  make  the 
Lord  threaten :  except  that  he  had  in  mind  some  dire 
mischief.  Accordingly,  the  people  decided  that  the 
best  thing  for  them  was  to  go  forward  as  Joshua  and 
Caleb  proposed.  So,  early  in  the  morning,  they  went 
up  into  the  top  of  the  mountain,  saying,  "We  be 
here,  and  will  go  up  unto  the  place  whi'ch  the  Lord 
hath  promised:  for  we  have  sinned." 

But  Moses  was  more  dissatisfied  than  ever. 
"Wherefore  now  do  you  transgress  the  command- 


PREFACE.  85 

ment  of  the  Lord?  But  it  shall  not  prosper."  Not- 
withstanding, "they  presumed  to  go  up  unto  the  hill- 
top :  nevertheless  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of  the  Lord, 
and  Moses,  departed  not  out  of  the  camp. 

"Then  the  Amalekites  came  down,  and  the  Ca- 
naanites,  which  dwelt  in  that  hill,  and  smote  them, 
and  discomfited  them,  even  unto  Hormah";  which 
was  at  a  very  considerable  distance,  —  perhaps  not 
less  than  thirty  miles,  though  the  positions  are  not 
very  well  established. 

This  is  the  story  as  told  by  the  priestly  chronicler, 
who,  of  course,  said  the  best  that  could  be  said  for 
Moses.  But  he  makes  a  sorry  tale  of  it.  According 
to  him,  Moses,  having  been  disappointed  with  the  re- 
port made  by  his  officers  on  the  advisability  of  an  im- 
mediate offensive,  committed  the  blunder  of  summon- 
ing the  whole  assembly  of  the  people  to  listen  to  it,  and 
then,  in  the  midst  of  the  panic  he  had  created,  he  lost 
his  self-possession  and  finally  his  temper.  Whereupon 
his  soldiers,  not  knowing  what  to  do  or  what  he 
wanted,  resolved  to  follow  the  advice  of  Joshua  and 
advance. 

But  this  angered  Moses  more  than  ever,  who  com- 
mitted the  unpardonable  crime  in  the  eyes  of  the  sol- 
dier; he  abandoned  his  men  in  the  presence  of  the  en- 
emy and  by  this  desertion  so  weakened  them  that  they 
sustained  the  worst  defeat  the  Israelites  suffered  dur- 
ing the  whole  of  their  wanderings  in  the  wilderness. 
Such  a  disaster  brought  on  a  crisis.  The  only  wonder 
is  that  it  had  been  so  long  delayed.  Moses  had  had 


86  PREFACE. 

since  the  exodus  a  wonderful  opportunity  to  test  the 
truth  of  his  theories.  He  had  asserted  that  the  uni- 
verse was  the  expression  of  a  single  and  supreme  mind, 
which  operated  according  to  a  fixed  moral  law.  That 
he  alone,  of  all  men,  understood  this  mind,  and  could 
explain  and  administer  its  law,  and  that  this  he  could 
and  would  do  were  he  to  obtain  absolute  obedience 
to  the  commands  which  he  uttered.  Were  he  only 
obeyed,  he  would  win  for  his  followers  victory  in  battle, 
and  a  wonderful  land  to  which  they  should  march 
under  his  guidance,  which  was  the  Promised  Land,  and 
thereafter  all  was  to  be  well  with  them. 

The  disaster  at  Honnah  had  demonstrated  that  he 
was  no  general,  and  even  on  that  very  day  the  people 
had  proof  before  their  eyes  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the 
desert,  and  that  the  Lord  knew  no  more  than  he,  since 
there  was  no  water  at  Kadesh,  and  to  ask  the  congre- 
gation to  encamp  in  such  a  spot  was  preposterous. 
Meanwhile  Moses  absorbed  all  the  offices  of  honor  and 
profit  for  his  family.  Aaron  and  his  descendants  mo- 
nopolized the  priesthood,  and  this  was  a  bitter  griev- 
ance to  other  equally  ambitious  Levites.  In  short,  the 
Mosaic  leadership  was  vulnerable  on  every  hand.  At- 
tack on  Moses  was,  therefore,  inevitable,  and  it  came 
from  Korah,  who  was  leader  of  the  opposition. 

Korah  was  a  cousin  of  Moses,  and  one  of  the  ablest 
and  most  influential  men  in  the  camp,  to  whom  Dathan 
and  Abiram  and  "two  hundred  and  fifty"  princes  of 
the  assembly,  famous  in  the  congregation,  men  of  re- 
nown, joined  themselves.  "And  they  gathered  them- 


PREFACE.  87 

selves  together  against  Moses  and  against  Aaron,  and 
said  unto  them,  Ye  take  too  much  upon  you,  seeing 
all  the  congregation  are  holy,  every  one  of  them,  and 
the  Lord  is  among  them:  wherefore  then  lift  you  up 
yourselves  above  the  congregation  of  the  Lord?" 

Korah's  grievance  was  that  he  had  been,  although 
a  Levite,  excluded  from  the  priesthood  in  favor  of  the 
demands  of  Aaron  and  his  sons. 

"And  when  Moses  heard  it,  he  fell  upon  his  face." 

And  yet  something  had  to  be  done.  Moses  faced 
an  extreme  danger.  His  life  hung  upon  the  issue. 
As  between  him  and  Korah  he  had  to  demonstrate 
which  was  the  better  sorcerer  or  magician,  and  he  could 
only  do  this  by  challenging  Korah  to  the  test  of  the  or- 
deal: the  familiar  test  of  the  second  clause  of  the  code 
of  Hammurabi;  "If  the  holy  river  makes  that  man  to 
be  innocent,  and  has  saved  him,  he  who  laid  the  spell 
upon  him  shall  be  put  to  death.  He  who  plunged  into 
the  holy  river  shall  take  to  himself  the  house  of  him 
who  wove  the  spell  upon  him."  r  And  so  with  Elijah, 
to  whom  Ahaziah  sent  a  captain  of  fifty  to  arrest  him. 
And  Elijah  said  to  the  captain  of  fifty,  "If  I  be  a  man 
of  God,  then  let  fire  come  down  from  heaven,  and  con- 
sume thee  and  thy  fifty.  And  there  came  down  fire 
from  heaven,  and  consumed  him  and  his  fifty."  2 

In  a  word,  the  ordeal  was  the  common  form  of  test 
by  which  the  enchanter,  the  sorcerer,  or  the  magician 
always  was  expected  to  prove  himself.  Moses  already 

1  Code  of  Laws  promulgated  by  Hammurabi,  King  of  Babylon. 
Translated  by  C.  H.  W.  Johns,  M.A.,  §  2. 

2  2  Kings  i,  10. 


88  PREFACE. 

had  tried  the  test  by  fire  at  least  once,  and  probably 
oftener.  So  now  Moses  reproached  Korah  because 
he  was  jealous  of  Aaron;  "and  what  is  Aaron,  that  ye 
murmur  against  him?  .  .  .  This  do;  Take  you  censers, 
Korah,  and  all  his  company;  and  put  fire  therein,  and 
put  incense  in  them  before  the  Lord  to-morrow;  and 
.  .  .  whom  the  Lord  doth  choose,  he  shall  be  holy:  ye 
take  too  much  upon  you,  ye  sons  of  Levi." 

But  it  was  not  only  about  the  priesthood  that  Moses 
had  trouble  on  his  hands.  He  had  undertaken,  with 
the  help  of  the  Lord,  to  lead  the  Israelites  through  the 
wilderness.  But  at  every  step  of  the  way  his  incom- 
petence became  more  manifest.  Even  there,  at  that 
very  camp  of  Kadesh,  there  was  no  water,  and  all  the 
people  clamored.  And,  therefore,  Dathan  and  Abiram 
taunted  him  with  failure,  and  with  his  injustice  to  those 
who  served  him.  And  Moses  had  no  reply,  except 
that  he  denied  having  abused  his  power. 

"And  Moses  sent  to  call  Dathan  and  Abiram,  the 
sons  of  Eliab:  which  said,  We  will  not  come  up: 

"Is  it  a  small  thing  that  thou  hast  brought  us  up 
out  of  a  land  that  floweth  with  milk  and  honey,  to  kill 
us  in  the  wilderness,  except  thou  make  thyself  alto- 
gether a  prince  over  us? 

"  Moreover,  thou  hast  not  brought  us  into  a  land  that 
floweth  with  milk  and  honey,  or  given  us  inheritance  of 
fields  and  vineyards:  wilt  thou  put  out  the  eyes  of 
these  men  [probably  alluding  to  the  "  spies  "]  ?  We  will 
not  come  up." 

This  was  evidently  an  exceedingly  sore  spot.    Moses 


PREFA  CE.  89 

had  boasted  that,  because  the  "spies"  had  rendered 
to  the  congregation  what  they  believed  to  be  a  true 
report  instead  of  such  a  report  as  he  had  expected,  the 
"Lord"  had  destroyed  them  by  the  plague.  And  it  is 
pretty  evident  that  the  congregation  believed  him.  It 
could  hardly  have  been  by  pure  accident  that  out  of 
twelve  men,  the  ten  who  had  offended  Moses  should 
have  died  by  the  plague,  and  the  other  two  alone 
should  have  escaped.  Moses  assumed  to  have  the 
power  of  destroying  whom  he  pleased  by  the  pestilence 
through  prayer  to  the  "Lord,"  and  he,  indeed,  proba- 
bly had  the  power,  in  such  a  spot  as  an  ancient  Jewish 
Nomad  camp,  not  indeed  by  prayer,  but  by  the  very 
human  means  of  communicating  so  virulent  a  poison 
as  the  plague:  means  which  he  very  well  understood. 

Therefore  it  is  not  astonishing  that  this  insinuation 
should  have  stung  Moses  to  the  quick. 

"And  Moses  was  very  wroth,  and  said  unto  the  Lord, 
Respect  not  thou  their  offering:  I  have  not  taken  one 
ass  from  them,  neither  have  I  hurt  one  of  them." 

Then  Moses  turned  to  Korah,  "Be  thou  and  all  thy 
company  before  the  Lord,  thou,  and  they,  and  Aaron, 
to-morrow: 

"And  take  every  man  his  censer,  and  put  incense  in 
them,  and  bring  ye  before  the  Lord  every  man  his 
censer,  two  hundred  and  fifty  censers." 

And  Korah,  on  the  morrow,  gathered  all  the  con- 
gregation against  them  unto  the  door  of  the  taber- 
nacle. And  the  "Lord"  then  as  usual  intervened  and 
advised  Moses  to  "separate  yourselves  from  among  this 


90  PREFACE. 

congregation,  that  I  may  consume  them  in  a  moment." 
And  Moses  did  so.  That  is  to  say,  he  made  an  effort 
to  divide  the  opposition,  who,  when  united,  he  seems 
to  have  appreciated,  were  too  strong  for  him. 

What  happened  next  is  not  known.  That  Moses 
partially  succeeded  in  his  attempt  at  division  is  ad- 
mitted, for  he  persuaded  Dathan  and  Abiram  and  their 
following  to  "  depart  .  .  .  from  the  tents  of  these  wicked 
men,  and  touch  nothing  of  theirs,  lest  ye  be  consumed 
in  all  their  sins." 

Exactly  what  occurred  after  this  is  unknown.  The 
chronicle,  of  course,  avers  that  "  the  earth  opened  her 
mouth,  and  swallowed  them  up,  and  their  houses,  and 
all  the  men  that  appertained  unto  Korah,  and  all  their 
goods."  But  it  could  not  have  been  this  or  anything 
like  it,  for  the  descendants  of  Korah,  many  generations 
after,  were  still  doing  service  hi  the  Temple,  and  at 
the  time  of  the  miracle  the  spectators  were  not  intimi- 
dated by  the  sight,  although  all  "Israel  that  were 
round  about  them  fled  at  the  cry  of  them:  for  they 
said,  Lest  the  earth  swallow  us  up  also. 

"And  there  came  out  a  fire  from  the  Lord,  and  con- 
sumed the  two  hundred  and  fifty  men  that  offered 
incense." 

Notwithstanding  all  which,  the  congregation  next 
day  were  as  hostile  and  as  threatening  as  ever. 

"On  the  morrow  all  the  congregation  of  the  children 
of  Israel  murmured  against  Moses  and  against  Aaron, 
saying,  Ye  have  killed  the  people  of  the  Lord.  .  .  . 

"And  they  fell  upon  their  faces." 


PREFACE.  91 

In  this  crisis  of  his  fate,  when  it  seemed  that  nothing 
could  save  Moses  from  a  conflict  with  the  mass  of  his 
followers,  who  had  renounced  him,  Moses  showed  that 
audacity  and  fertility  of  resource,  which  had  hitherto 
enabled  him,  and  was  destined  until  his  death  to  en- 
able him,  to  maintain  his  position,  at  least  as  a  prophet, 
among  the  Jewish  people. 

The  plague  was  always  the  most  dreaded  of  visita- 
tions among  the  ancient  Jews:  far  more  terrible  than 
war.  It  was  already  working  havoc  in  the  camp,  as 
the  death  of  the  "spies"  shows  us.  Moses  always 
asserted  his  ability  to  control  it,  and  at  this  instant, 
when,  apparently,  he  and  Aaron  were  lying  on  their 
faces  before  the  angry  people,  he  conceived  the  idea 
that  he  would  put  his  theurgetic  powers  to  the  proof. 
Suddenly  he  called  to  Aaron  to  "take  a  censer  and  put 
fire  therein  from  off  the  altar,  and  put  on  incense,  and 
go  quickly  unto  the  congregation,  and  make  an  atone- 
ment for  them:  for  there  is  wrath  gone  out  from  the 
Lord;  the  plague  is  begun." 

"And  Aaron  took  as  Moses  commanded,  and  ran 
into  the  midst  of  the  congregation;  and,  behold,  the 
plague  was  begun  among  the  people:  .  .  .  and  made 
an  atonement  for  the  people. 

"And  he  stood  between  the  dead  and  the  living; 
and  the  plague  was  stayed. 

"Now  they  that  died  in  the  plague  were  fourteen 
thousand  and  seven  hundred,  beside  them  that  died 
about  the  matter  of  Korah." 

Even  this  was  not  enough.    The  discontent  con- 


92  PREFA  CE. 

tinned,  and  Moses  went  on  to  meet  it  by  the  miracle 
of  Aaron's  rod. 

Moses  took  a  rod  from  each  tribe,  twelve  rods  in  all 
and  on  Aaron's  rod  he  wrote  the  name  of  Levi,  and 
Moses  laid  them  out  in  the  tabernacle.  And  the  next 
day  Moses  examined  the  rods  and  showed  the  con- 
gregation how  Aaron's  rod  had  budded.  And  Moses 
declared  that  Aaron's  rod  should  be  kept  for  a  token 
against  the  rebels :  and  that  they  must  stop  their  mur- 
murings  "that  they  die  not." 

This  manipulation  of  the  plague  by  Moses,  upon 
what  seenis  to  have  been  a  sudden  inspiration,  was  a 
stroke  of  genius  in  the  way  of  quackery.  He  was, 
indeed,  in  this  way  almost  portentous.  It  had  a 
great  and  terrifying  effect  upon  the  people,  who  were 
completely  subdued  by  it.  Against  corporeal  enemies 
they  might  hope  to  prevail,  but  they  were  helpless 
against  the  plague.  And  they  all  cried  out  with  one 
accord,  "Behold  we  die,  we  perish,  we  all  perish.  Who- 
soever cometh  anything  near  unto  the  tabernacle  of 
the  Lord  shall  die:  shall  we  be  consumed  with  dying?" 

As  I  have  already  pointed  out,  Moses  was  a  very 
great  theurgist,  as  many  saints  and  prophets  have 
been.  When  in  the  actual  presence  of  others  he  evi- 
dently had  the  power  of  creating  a  belief  in  himself 
which  approached  the  miraculous,  so  far  as  disease 
was  concerned.  And  he  presumed  on  this  power  and 
took  correspondingly  great  risks.  The  case  of  the 
brazen  serpent  is  an  example.  The  story  is  —  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  its  substantial  truth  —  that 


PREFACE.  93 

the  Hebrews  were  attacked  by  venomous  serpents 
probably  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mount  Hor,  where 
Aaron  died,  and  thereupon  Moses  set  up  a  large 
brazen  serpent  on  a  pole,  and  declared  that  whoever 
would  look  upon  the  serpent  should  live.  Also,  appar- 
ently, it  did  produce  an  effect  upon  those  who  believed : 
which,  of  course,  is  not  an  unprecedented  phenomenon 
among  faith  healers.  But  what  is  interesting  in  this 
historical  anecdote  is  not  that  Moses  performed  cer- 
tain faith  cures  by  the  suggestion  of  a  serpent,  but  that 
the  Israelites  themselves,  when  out  of  the  presence  of 
Moses,  recognized  that  he  had  perpetrated  on  them  a 
vulgar  fraud.  For  example,  King  Hezekiah  destroyed 
this  relic,  which  had  been  preserved  in  the  Temple, 
calling  it  "Nehushtan,"  "a  brazen  thing,"  as  an  expres- 
sion of  his  contempt.  And  what  is  more  remarkable 
still  is  that  although  Hezekiah  reigned  four  or  five 
centuries  after  the  exodus,  yet  science  had  made  no 
such  advance  in  the  interval  as  to  justify  this  con- 
tempt. Hezekiah  seems  to  have  been  every  whit  as 
credulous  as  were  the  pilgrims  who  looked  on  the 
brazen  serpent  and  were  healed.  Hezekiah  "was 
sick  unto  death,  and  Isaiah  came  to  see  him,  and  told 
him  to  set  his  house  in  order;  for  thou  shalt  die,  and 
not  live.  .  .  .  And  Hezekiah  wept  sore." 

Then,  like  Moses,  Isaiah  had  another  revelation  in 
which  he  was  directed  to  return  to  Hezekiah,  and  tell 
him  that  he  was  to  live  fifteen  years  longer.  And  Isai- 
ah told  the  attendants  to  take  "  a  lump  of  figs."  "And 
they  took  it  and  laid  it  on  the  boil,  and  he  recovered." 


94  PREFACE. 

Afterward  Hezekiah  asked  of  Isaiah  how  he  was  to 
know  that  the  Lord  would  keep  his  word  and  give 
him  fifteen  additional  years  of  life.  Isaiah  told  him 
that  the  shadow  should  go  back  ten  degrees  on  the  dial. 
And  Isaiah  "cried  unto  the  Lord,"  and  he  brought  the 
shadow  ten  degrees  backward  "by  which  it  had  gone 
down  in  the  dial  of  Ahaz."  l  And  yet  this  man  Heze- 
kiah, who  could  believe  in  this  marvellous  cure  of 
Isaiah,  repudiated  with  scorn  the  brazen  serpent  as 
an  insult  to  credulity.  The  contrast  between  Moses, 
who  hesitated  not  to  take  all  risks  in  matters  of  dis- 
ease with  which  he  felt  himself  competent  to  cope,  and 
his  timidity  and  hesitation  hi  matters  of  war,  is  as- 
tounding. But  it  is  a  common  phenomenon  with  the 
worker  of  miracles  and  indicates  the  limit  of  faith  at 
which  the  saint  or  prophet  has  always  betrayed  the 
impostor.  For  example:  Saint  Bernard,  when  he 
preached  in  1146  the  Second  Crusade,  made  miracu- 
lous cures  by  the  thousand,  so  much  so  that  there  was 
danger  of  being  killed  hi  the  crowds  which  pressed 
upon  him.  And  yet  this  same  saint,  when  chosen  by 
the  crusaders  four  years  later,  in  1150,  to  lead  them 
because  of  his  power  to  constrain  victory  by  the  inter- 
vention of  God,  wrote,  after  the  crusaders'  defeat, 
in  terror  to  the  pope  to  protect  him,  because  he  was 
unfit  to  take  such  responsibility. 

But  even  with  this  reservation  Moses  could  not  gain 
the  complete  confidence  of  the  congregation  and  the 
insecurity  of  his  position  finally  broke  him  down. 
1  2  Kings  xx,  11. 


PREFACE.  95 

At  this  same  place  of  Kadesh,  Miriam  died,  "and 
the  people  chode  with  Moses  because  there  was  no 
water  for  the  congregation."  1  Moses  thereupon  with- 
drew and,  as  usual,  received  a  revelation.  And  the 
Lord  directed  him  to  take  his  rod,  "and  speak  ye  unto 
the  rock  before  their  eyes;  and  it  shall  give  forth  his 
water." 

And  Moses  gathered  the  congregation  and  said 
unto  them,  "Hear  now,  ye  rebels;  must  we  fetch  you 
water  out  of  this  rock?" 

"And  he  smote  the  rock  twice:  and  the  water  came 
out  abundantly." 

But  Moses  felt  that  he  had  offended  God,  "Because 
ye  believed  me  not,  to  sanctify  me  in  the  eyes  of  the 
children  of  Israel,  therefore  ye  shall  not  bring  this  con- 
gregation into  the  land  which  I  have  given  them." 

Moses  had  become  an  old  man,  and  he  felt  himself 
unequal  to  the  burden  he  had  assumed.  He  recog- 
nized that  his  theory  of  cause  and  effect  had  broken 
down,  and  that  the  "Lord"  whom  at  the  outset  he  had 
firmly  believed  to  be  an  actual  and  efficient  power  to 
be  dominated  by  him,  either  could  not  or  would  not 
support  him  in  emergency.  In  short,  he  had  learned 
that  he  was  an  adventurer  who  must  trust  to  himself. 
Hence,  after  Hormah  he  was  a  changed  man.  Nothing 
could  induce  him  to  lead  the  Jews  across  the  Jordan 
to  attack  the  peoples  on  the  west  bank,  and  though 
the  congregation  made  a  couple  of  campaigns  against 
Sihon  and  Og,  whose  ruthlessness  has  always  been  a 
1  Numbers  xx,  3. 


96  PREFACE. 

stain  on  Moses,  the  probability  is  that  Moses  did  not 
meddle  much  with  the  active  command.  Had  he  done 
so,  the  author  of  Deuteronomy  would  have  given  the 
story  in  more  detail  and  Moses  more  credit.  All  that 
is  attributed  to  Moses  is  a  division  of  the  conquests 
made  together  with  Joshua,  and  a  fruitless  prayer  to  the 
Lord  that  he  might  be  permitted  to  cross  the  Jordan. 

Meanwhile  life  was  ending  for  him.  His  elder  sister 
Miriam  died  at  Kadesh,  and  Aaron  died  somewhat 
later  at  Mount  Hor,  which  is  supposed  to  lie  about  as 
far  to  the  east  of  Kadesh  as  Hormah  is  to  the  west,  but 
there  are  circumstances  about  the  death  of  Aaron  which 
point  to  Moses  as  having  had  more  to  do  with  it  than 
of  having  been  a  mere  passive  spectator  thereof. 

The  whole  congregation  is  represented  as  having 
"journeyed  from  Kadesh  and  come  unto  Mount  Hor 
...  by  the  coast  of  the  land  of  Edom,"  and  there 
the  "Lord"  spoke  unto  Moses  and  Aaron,  and  ex- 
plained that  Aaron  was  to  be  "gathered  unto  his 
people,  .  .  .  because  ye  rebelled  ...  at  the  water  of 
Meribah."  Therefore  Moses  was  to  "take  Aaron  and 
Eleazar  his  son,  and  bring  them  up  unto  Mount  Hor: 
and  strip  Aaron  of  his  garments,  and  put  them  upon 
Eleazar,"  .  .  .  and  that  Aaron  .  .  .  shall  die  there. 

"And  they  went  up  into  Mount  Hor  in  the  sight  of 
all  the  congregation.  And  Moses  stripped  Aaron  of 
his  garments,  and  put  them  upon  Eleazar  his  son;  and 
Aaron  died  there  in  the  top  of  the  mount:  and  Moses 
and  Eleazar  came  down  from  the  mount."  l 
1  Numbers  xx,  22-28. 


PREFACE.  97 

Now  it  is  incredible  that  all  this  happened  as 
straightforwardly  as  the  chronicle  would  have  us  be- 
lieve. Aaron  was  an  old  man  and  probably  failing,  but 
his  death  was  not  imminent.  On  the  contrary,  he  had 
strength  to  climb  Mount  Hor  with  Moses,  without  aid, 
and  there  is  no  hint  that  he  suffered  from  any  ailment 
likely  to  end  his  life  suddenly.  Moses  took  care  that 
he  and  Eleazar  should  be  alone  with  Aaron  so  that 
there  should  be  no  witness  as  to  what  occurred,  and 
Moses  alone  knew  what  was  expected. 

Moses  had  time  to  take  off  the  priestly  garments, 
which  were  the  insignia  of  office  and  to  put  them  on 
Eleazar,  and  then,  when  all  was  ready,  Aaron  simply 
ceased  to  breathe  at  the  precise  moment  when  it 
was  convenient  for  Moses  to  have  him  die,  for  the 
policy  of  Moses  evidently  demanded  that  Aaron  should 
live  no  longer.  Under  the  conditions  of  the  march 
Moses  was  evidently  preparing  for  his  own  death,  and 
for  a  complete  change  in  the  administration  of  affairs. 
Appreciating  that  his  leadership  had  broken  down  and 
that  the  system  he  had  created  was  collapsing,  he  had 
dawdled  as  long  on  the  east  side  of  the  Jordan  as  the 
patience  of  the  congregation  would  permit.  An  ad- 
vance had  become  inevitable,  but  Moses  recognized  his 
own  inability  to  lead  it.  The  command  had  to  be 
delegated  to  a  younger  man  and  that  man  was  Joshua. 
Eleazar,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  only  available 
candidate  for  the  high  priesthood,  and  Moses  took  the 
opportunity  of  making  the  investiture  on  Mount  Hor. 
So  Aaron  passed  away,  a  sacrifice  to  the  optimism  of 


98  PREFACE. 

Moses.  Next  came  the  turn  of  Moses  himself.  The 
whole  story  is  told  in  Deuteronomy.  Within,  prob- 
ably, something  less  than  a  year  after  Aaron's  death 
the  "Lord"  made  a  like  communication  to  Moses. 

"  Get  thee  up  ...  unto  Mount  Nebo,  which  is  in  the 
land  of  Moab,  that  is  over  against  Jericho; 

"And  die  in  the  Mount  whither  thou  goest  up,  and  be 
gathered  unto  thy  people;  as  Aaron,  thy  brother  died 
in  Mount  Hor; 

"Because  ye  trespassed  against  me  among  the 
children  of  Israel  at  the  waters  of  Meribah-Kadesh,  in 
the  wilderness  of  Zin,  because  ye  sanctified  me  not  in 
the  midst  of  the  children  of  Israel. 

"And  Moses  went  up  from  the  plains  of  Moab  unto 
the  mountain  of  Nebo,  .  .  .  And  the  Lord  showed  him 
all  the  land  of  Gilead,  unto  Dan. 

"And  Moses  the  servant  of  the  Lord  died  there 
in  the  land  of  Moab,  according  to  the  word  of  the 
Lord.  .  .  .  But  no  man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre  unto 
this  day. 

"And  Moses  was  an  hundred  and  twenty  years  old 
when  he  died:  his  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force 
abated." 

The  facts,  as  preserved  by  Josephus,  appear  to  have 
been  these:  Moses  ascended  the  mountain  with  only 
the  elders,  the  high  priest  Eleazar,  and  Joshua.  At 
the  top  of  the  mountain  he  dismissed  the  elders,  and 
then,  as  he  was  embracing  Joshua  and  Eleazar  and 
still  speaking,  a  cloud  covered  him,  and  he  disappeared 
in  a  ravine.  In  other  words,  he  killed  himself. 


PREFACE.  99 

Such  is  the  story  of  Moses,  a  fragment  of  history  in- 
teresting enough  in  itself,  but  especially  material  to  us 
not  only  because  of  the  development  of  the  thought 
dealt  with  in  the  following  volumes,  but  of  the  infer- 
ences which,  at  the  present  time,  it  permits  us  to  draw 
touching  our  own  immediate  future. 

Moses  was  the  first  great  optimist  of  whom  any 
record  remains,  and  one  of  the  greatest.  He  was  the 
prototype  of  all  those  who  have  followed.  He  was  a 
visionary.  All  optimists  must  be  visionaries.  Moses 
based  the  social  system  which  he  tried  to  organize,  not 
on  observed  facts,  but  on  a  priori  theories  evolved  out 
of  his  own  mind,  and  he  met  with  the  failure  that  all 
men  of  that  cast  of  mind  must  meet  with  when  he 
sought  to  realize  his  visions.  His  theory  was  that  the 
universe  about  him  was  the  expression  of  an  infinite 
mind  which  operated  according  to  law.  That  this 
mind,  or  consciousness,  was  intelligent  and  capable  of 
communicating  with  man.  That  it  did,  in  fact,  so 
communicate  through  him,  as  a  medium,  and  that 
other  men  had  only  to  receive  humbly  and  obey  im- 
plicitly his  revelations  to  arrive  at  a  condition  nearly 
approaching,  if  not  absolutely  reaching,  perfection, 
while  they  should  enjoy  happiness  and  prosperity  in 
the  land  in  which  they  should  be  permitted,  by  an 
infinite  and  supernatural  power  and  wisdom,  to 
dwell.  All  this  is  not  alien  to  the  attitude  of  scien- 
tific optimists  at  the  present  day,  who  anticipate  pro- 
gressive perfection. 

Let  us  consider,  for  a  moment,  whither  these  a  priori 


100  PREFACE. 

theories  led,  when  put  in  practice  upon  human  beings, 
including  himself.  And,  in  the  first  place,  it  will  prob- 
ably be  conceded  that  no  optimist  could  have,  or  ever 
hope  to  have,  a  f airer  opportunity  to  try  his  experiment 
than  had  Moses  on  that  plastic  Hebrew  community 
which  he  undertook  to  lead  through  Arabia.  Also  it 
must  be  admitted  that  Moses,  as  an  expounder  of  a 
moral  code,  achieved  success.  The  moral  principles 
which  he  laid  down  have  been  accepted  as  sound  from 
that  day  to  this,  and  are  still  written  up  in  our  churches, 
as  a  standard  for  men  and  women,  however  slackly 
they  may  be  observed.  But  when  we  come  to  mark 
the  methods  by  which  Moses  obtained  acceptance  of 
his  code  by  his  contemporaries,  and,  above  all,  sought 
to  constrain  obedience  to  himself  and  to  it,  we  find  the 
prospect  unalluring.  To  begin  witk,  Moses  had  only 
begun  the  exodus  when  he  learned  from  his  practical 
father-in-law  that  the  system  he  employed  was  fan- 
tastic and  certain  to  fail :  his  notion  being  that  he  should 
sit  and  judge  causes  himself,  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the 
infinite,  and  that  therefore  each  judgment  he  gave 
would  demand  a  separate  miracle  or  imposture.  This 
could  not  be  contemplated.  Therefore  Moses  was 
constrained  to  impose  his  code  in  writing,  once  for  all, 
by  one  gigantic  fraud  which  he  must  perpetrate  him- 
self. This  he  tried  at  Sinai,  unblushingly  declaring 
that  the  stone  tablets  which  he  produced  were  "writ- 
ten with  the  finger  of  God";  wherefore,  as  they  must 
have  been  written  by  himself,  or  under  his  personal 
supervision,  he  brazenly  and  deliberately  lied.  His 


PREFACE.  101 

good  faith  was  obviously  suspected,  and  this  suspicion 
caused  disastrous  results.  To  support  his  lie  Moses 
caused  three  thousand  unsuspecting  and  trusting  men 
to  be  murdered  in  cold  blood,  whose  only  crime  was 
that  they  would  have  preferred  another  leadership  to 
his,  and  because,  had  they  been  able  to  effect  their 
purpose,  they  would  have  disappointed  his  ambition. 
To  follow  Moses  further  in  the  course  which  opti- 
mism enforced  upon  him  would  be  tedious,  as  it  would 
be  to  recapitulate  the  story  which  has  already  been 
told.  It  suffices  to  say  shortly  that,  at  every  camp, 
he  had  to  sink  to  deeper  depths  of  fraud,  deception, 
lying,  and  crime  in  order  to  maintain  his  credit.  It 
might  be  that,  as  at  Meribah,  it  was  only  claiming  for 
himself  a  miracle  which  he  knew  he  could  not  work, 
and  for  claiming  which,  instead  of  giving  the  credit 
to  God,  he  openly  declared  he  deserved  and  must  re- 
ceive punishment;  or  it  might  be  some  impudent 
quackery,  like  the  brazen  serpent,  which  at  least  was 
harmless;  or  it  might  have  been  complicated  combi- 
nations which  suggest  a  deeper  shade;  as,  for  example, 
the  outbreak  of  the  plague,  after  Koran's  rebellion, 
which  bears  the  aspect  of  a  successful  effort  at  intimi- 
dation to  support  his  own  wavering  credit.  But  the 
result  was  always  the  same.  Moses  had  promised 
that  the  supernatural  power  he  pretended  to  control 
should  sustain  him  and  give  victory.  Possibly,  when 
he  started  on  the  exodus  he  verily  believed  that  such 
a  power  existed,  was  amenable  and  could  be  con- 
strained to  intervene.  He  found  that  he  had  been 


102  PREFACE. 

mistaken  on  all  these  heads,  and  when  he  accepted 
these  facts  as  final,  nothing  remained  for  him  but  sui- 
cide, as  has  been  related.  It  only  remains  to  glance, 
for  a  single  moment,  at  what  befell,  when  he  had  gone, 
the  society  he  had  organized  on  the  optimistic  prin- 
ciple of  the  approach  of  human  beings  toward  perfec- 
tion. During  the  period  of  the  Judges,  when  "there 
was  no  king  in  Israel,  but  every  man  did  that  which 
was  right  in  his  own  eyes,"  1  anarchy  supervened,  in- 
deed, but  also  the  whole  Mosaic  system  broke  down 
because  of  the  imbecility  of  the  men  on  whom  Moses 
relied  to  lift  the  people  toward  perfection. 

Eli,  a  descendant  of  Aaron,  was  high  priest,  and  a 
judge,  being  the  predecessor  of  Samuel,  the  last  of  the 
judges.  Now  Eli  had  two  sons  who  "were  sons  of 
Belial;  they  knew  not  the  Lord." 

Eli,  being  very  old,  "heard  all  that  his  sons  did  unto 
all  Israel;  and  how  they  lay  with  the  women  that  as- 
sembled at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle.  ..."  And  Eli 
argued  with  them;  "notwithstanding  they  harkened 
not  unto  the  voice  of  their  father." 

Samuel  succeeded  Eli.  He  was  not  a  descendant  of 
Aaron,  but  became  a  judge,  apparently,  upon  his  own 
merits.  But  as  a  judge  he  did  not  constrain  his  sons 
any  better  than  Eli  had  his,  for  "they  took  bribes,  and 
perverted  judgment."  So  the  elders  of  Israel  came  to 
Samuel  and  said,  "  Give  us  a  long  to  judge  us."  "  And 
Samuel  prayed  unto  the  Lord,"  though  he  disliked 
the  idea.  Yet  the  result  was  inevitable.  The  king- 
1  Judges  xvn,  6. 


PREFACE.  103 

dom  was  set  up,  and  the  Mosaic  society  perished. 
Nothing  was  left  of  Mosaic  optimism  but  the  tradi- 
tion. Also  there  was  the  Mosaic  morality,  and  what 
that  amounted  to  may  best,  perhaps,  be  judged  by 
David,  who  was  the  most  perfect  flower  of  the  perfec- 
tion to  which  humanity  was  to  attain  under  the  Mo- 
saic law,  and  has  always  stood  for  what  was  best  in 
Mosaic  optimism.  David's  morality  is  perhaps  best 
illustrated  by  the  story  of  Uriah  the  Hittite. 

One  day  David  saw  Uriah's  wife  taking  a  bath  on 
her  housetop  and  took  a  fancy  to  her.  The  story  is  all 
told  in  the  Second  of  Samuel.  How  David  sent  for 
her,  took  her  into  the  palace,  and  murdered  Uriah  by 
sending  him  to  Joab  who  commanded  the  army,  and 
instructing  Joab  to  set  Uriah  in  the  forefront  of  the 
hottest  battle,  and  "retire  ye  from  him  that  he  may 
be  smitten  and  die."  And  Uriah  was  killed. 

Then  came  the  famous  parable  by  Nathan  of  the 
ewe  lamb.  "And  David's  anger  was  greatly  kindled 
against  the  man;  and  he  said  to  Nathan,  As  the  Lord 
liveth,  the  man  who  hath  done  this  thing  shall  surely 
die. 

"And  Nathan  said  to  David,  Thou  art  the  man." 

And  Nathan  threatened  David  with  all  kinds  of  dis- 
aster and  even  with  death,  and  David  was  very  re- 
pentant and  "he  fasted  and  lay  all  night  upon  the 
earth."  But  for  all  that,  when  assured  that  nothing 
worse  was  to  happen  to  him  than  the  loss  of  the  son 
Bathsheba  had  borne  him,  David  comforted  Bathsheba. 
He  by  no  means  gave  her  up.  On  the  contrary,  "he 


104  PREFACE. 

went  in  unto  her  .  .  .  and  she  bare  him  a  son,  and  he 
called  his  name  Solomon:  and  the  Lord  loved  him." 

Again  the  flesh  had  prevailed.  And  so  it  has  always 
been  with  each  new  movement  which  has  been  stim- 
ulated by  an  idealism  inspired  by  a  belief  that  the 
spirit  was  capable  of  generating  an  impulse  which  would 
overcome  the  flesh  and  which  could  cause  men  to  move 
toward  perfection  along  any  other  path  than  the  least 
resistant.  And  this  because  man  is  an  automaton, 
and  can  move  no  otherwise.  In  this  point  of  view 
nothing  can  be  more  instructive  than  to  compare  the 
Roman  with  the  Mosaic  civilization,  for  the  Romans 
were  a  sternly  practical  people  and  worshipped  force 
as  Moses  worshipped  an  ideal. 

As  Moses  dreamed  of  realizing  the  divine  conscious- 
ness on  earth  by  introspection  and  by  prayer,  so  the 
Romans  supposed  that  they  could  attain  to  prosperity 
and  happiness  on  earth  by  the  development  of  su- 
perior physical  force  and  the  destruction  of  all  rivals. 
Cato  the  Censor  was  the  typical  Roman  landowner, 
the  type  of  the  class  which  built  up  the  great  vested 
interest  in  land  which  always  moved  and  dominated 
Rome.  He  expressed  the  Roman  ideal  in  his  famous 
declaration  in  the  Senate,  when  he  gave  his  vote  for 
the  Third  Punic  War;  "Delenda  est  Carthago"  Car- 
thage must  be  destroyed.  And  Carthage  was  de- 
stroyed because  to  a  Roman  to  destroy  Carthage 
was  a  logical  competitive  necessity.  Subsequently, 
the  Romans  took  the  next  step  in  their  social  adjust- 
ment at  home.  They  deified  the  energy  which  had 


PREFACE.  105 

destroyed  Carthage.  The  incarnation  of  physical 
force  became  the  head  of  the  State;  —  the  Emperor 
when  living,  the  Divus,  when  dead.  And  this  con- 
ception gained  expression  in  the  law.  This  godlike 
energy  found  vent  in  the  Imperial  will;  "Quod  prin- 
cipi  placuit,  legis  habet  vigorem."  1 

Nothing  could  be  more  antagonistic  to  the  Mosaic 
philosophy,  which  invoked  the  supernatural  unity  as 
authority  for  every  police  regulation.  Moreover,  the 
Romans  carried  out  their  principle  relentlessly,  to 
their  own  destruction.  That  great  vested  interest 
which  had  absorbed  the  land  of  Italy,  and  had  erected 
the  administrative  entity  which  policed  it,  could  not 
hold  and  cultivate  its  land  profitably,  in  competition 
with  other  lands  such  as  Egypt,  North  Africa,  or  As- 
syria, which  were  worked  by  a  cheaper  and  more 
resistant  people.  Therefore  the  Roman  landowners 
imported  this  competitive  population  from  their  homes, 
having  first  seized  them  as  slaves,  and  cultivated  their 
own  Italian  fields  with  them  after  the  eviction  of  the 
original  native  peasants,  who  could  not  survive  on  the 
scanty  nutriment  on  which  the  eastern  races  throve.2 

1  Inst.  1,  2,  6. 

2  I  have  dealt  with  this  subject  at  length  in  my  Law  of  Civiliza- 
tion and  Decay,  chapter  n,  to  which  I  must  refer  the  reader.   More 
fully  still  in  the  French  translation.    "This  unceasing  emigration 
gradually  changed  the  character  of  the  rural  population,  and  a 
similar  alteration  took  place  in  the  army.   As  early  as  the  time  of 
Caesar,  Italy  was  exhausted;  his  legions  were  mainly  raised  in  Gaul, 
and  as  the  native  farmers  sank  into  serfdom  or  slavery,  and  then 
at  last  vanished,  recruits  were  drawn  more  and  more  from  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  empire."   I  cannot  repeat  my  arguments  here,  but 
I  am  not  aware  that  they  have  been  seriously  controverted. 


106  PREFACE. 

The  Roman  law,  the  Romano,  lex,  was  as  gigantic, 
as  original,  and  as  comprehensive  a  structure  as  was 
the  empire  which  gave  to  it  expression.  Modern  Euro- 
pean law  is  but  a  dilution  thereof.  The  Roman  law 
attained  perfection,  as  I  conceive,  about  the  time  of 
the  Antonines,  through  the  great  jurists  who  then 
flourished.  If  one  might  name  a  particular  moment  at 
which  so  vast  and  complex  a  movement  culminated, 
one  would  be  tempted  to  suggest  the  reign  of  Hadrian, 
who  appointed  Salvius  Julianus  to  draw  up  the  edictum 
perpetuum,  or  permanent  edict,  in  the  year  132  A.D. 
Thenceforward  the  magistrate  had  to  use  his  discre- 
tion only  when  the  edict  of  Julianus  did  not  apply. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  capital  principle  of  munici- 
pal law  has  been  evolved  since  that  time,  and  the  aston- 
ishing power  of  the  Roman  mind  can  only  be  appre- 
ciated when  it  is  remembered  that  the  whole  of  this 
colossal  fabric  was  original.  Modern  European  law 
has  been  only  a  servile  copy.  But,  regard  being  had  to 
the  position  of  the  emperor  in  relation  to  the  people, 
and  more  especially  in  relation  to  the  vast  bureau- 
cracy of  Rome,  which  was  the  embodiment  of  the 
vested  interest  which  was  Rome  itself,  the  adherence 
of  Roman  thought  to  the  path  of  least  resistance  was 
absolute.  "  So  far  as  the  cravings  of  Stoicism  found 
historical  and  political  fulfilment,  they  did  so  in  the 
sixty  years  of  Hadrian  and  the  Antonines,  and  so  far 
again  as  an  individual  can  embody  the  spirit  of  an  age, 
its  highest  and  most  representative  impersonation  is 
unquestionably  to  be  found  hi  the  person  of  Marcus 


PREFACE.  107 

Antoninus.  .  .  .  Stoicism  faced  the  whole  problem  of 
existence,  and  devoted  as  searching  an  investigation 
to  processes  of  being  and  of  thought,  to  physics  and 
to  dialectic,  as  to  the  moral  problems  presented  by  the 
emotions  and  the  will."  l 

Such  was  stoicism,  of  which  Marcus  Aurelius  was 
and  still  remains  the  foremost  expression.  He  ad- 
mitted that  as  emperor  his  first  duty  was  to  sacri- 
fice himself  for  the  public  and  he  did  his  duty  with  a 
constancy  which  ultimately  cost  him  his  life.  Among 
these  duties  was  the  great  duty  of  naming  his  succes- 
sor. The  Roman  Empire  never  became  strictly  he- 
reditary. It  hinged,  as  perhaps  no  other  equally  de- 
veloped system  ever  hinged,  upon  the  personality  of 
the  emperor,  who  incarnated  the  administrative  bu- 
reaucracy which  gave  effect  to  the  Pax  Romano,  and 
the  Romana  lex  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Atlantic 
and  from  Scotland  to  the  Tropic  of  Cancer.  Of  all 
men  Marcus  Aurelius  was  the  most  conscientious  and 
the  most  sincere,  and  he  understood,  as  perhaps  no 
other  man  in  like  position  ever  understood,  the  respon- 
sibility which  impinged  on  him,  to  allow  no  private  pre- 
vention to  impose  an  unfit  emperor  upon  the  empire. 
But  Marcus  had  a  son  Commodus,  who  was  nineteen 
when  his  father  died,  and  who  had  already  developed 
traits  which  caused  foreboding.  Nevertheless,  Mar- 
cus associated  Commodus  with  himself  in  the  empire 
when  Commodus  was  fourteen  and  Commodus  at- 

1  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  in  English,  by  Gerald  H.  Kendall, 
Introduction,  xxvn. 


108  PREFACE. 

tained  to  absolute  power  when  Marcus  died.  Subse- 
quently, Commodus  became  the  epitome  of  all  that  was 
basest  and  worst  in  a  ruler.  He  was  murdered  by 
the  treachery  of  Marcia,  his  favorite  concubine,  and 
the  Senate  decreed  that  "his  body  should  be  dragged 
with  a  hook  into  the  stripping  room  of  the  gladiators, 
to  satiate  the  public  fury."  l 

From  that  day  Rome  entered  upon  the  acute  stage 
of  her  decline,  and  she  did  so  very  largely  because 
Marcus  Aurelius,  the  ideal  stoic,  was  incapable  of 
violating  the  great  law  of  nature  which  impelled  him 
to  follow  not  reason,  but  the  path  of  least  resistance  in 
choosing  a  successor;  or,  in  other  words,  the  instinct 
of  heredity.  Moreover,  this  instinct  and  not  reason 
is  or  has  been,  among  the  strongest  which  operate 
upon  men,  and  makes  them  automata.  It  is  the  basis 
upon  which  the  family  rests,  and  the  family  is  the 
essence  of  social  cohesion.  Also  the  hereditary  in- 
stinct has  been  the  prime  motor  which  has  created 
constructive  municipal  jurisprudence  and  which  has 
evolved  religion. 

With  the  death  of  Marcus  Aurelius  individual  com- 
petition may  be  judged  to  have  done  its  work,  and  pres- 
ently, as  the  population  changed  its  character,  under 
the  stress  thereof,  a  new  phase  opened:  a  phase  which 
is  marked,  as  such  phases  usually  are,  by  victory  in 
war.  Marcus  Aurelius  died  in  180  A.D.  Substantially 
a  century  later,  in  312,  Constantine  won  the  battle 
of  the  Milvian  Bridge  with  his  troops  fighting  under 
1  Decline  and  Fall,  chap.  iv. 


PREFACE.  109 

the  Labarum,  a  standard  bearing  a  cross  with  the 
device  "  In  hoc  signo  vinces  " ;  By  this  sign  conquer. 
Probably  Constantine  had  himself  scanty  faith  in  the 
Labarum,  but  he  speculated  upon  it  as  a  means  to 
arouse  enthusiasm  in  his  men.  It  served  his  purpose, 
and  finding  the  step  he  had  taken  on  the  whole  satis- 
factory, he  followed  it  up  by  accepting  baptism  in 
337  A.D. 

From  this  time  forward  the  theory  of  the  possibility 
of  securing  divine  or  supernatural  aid  by  various 
forms  of  incantation  or  prayer  gained  steadily  in  power 
for  about  eight  centuries,  until  at  length  it  became  a 
passion  and  gave  birth  to  a  school  of  optimism,  the 
most  overwhelming  and  the  most  brilliant  which  the 
world  has  ever  known  and  which  evolved  an  age 
whose  end  we  still  await. 

The  Germans  of  the  fourth  century  were  a  very 
simple  race,  who  comprehended  little  of  natural  laws, 
and  who  therefore -referred  phenomena  they  did  not 
understand  to  supernatural  intervention.  This  inter- 
vention could  only  be  controlled  by  priests,  and  thus 
the  invasions  caused  a  rapid  rise  in  the  influence  of  the 
sacred  class.  The  power  of  every  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganization has  always  rested  on  the  miracle,  and  the 
clergy  have  always  proved  their  divine  commission  as 
did  Moses.  This  was  eminently  the  case  with  the 
mediaeval  Church.  At  the  outset  Christianity  was 
socialistic,  and  its  spread  among  the  poor  was  appar- 
ently caused  by  the  pressure  of  servile  competition;  for 
the  sect  only  became  of  enough  importance  to  be  per- 


110  PREFACE. 

secuted  under  Nero,  contemporaneously  with  the  first 
signs  of  distress  which  appeared  through  the  debase- 
ment of  the  denarius.  But  socialism  was  only  a  pass- 
ing phase,  and  disappeared  as  the  money  value  of  the 
miracle  rose,  and  brought  wealth  to  the  Church. 
Under  the  Emperor  Decius,  about  250,  the  magis- 
trates thought  the  Christians  opulent  enough  to  use 
gold  and  silver  vessels  in  their  service,  and  by  the 
fourth  century  the  supernatural  so  possessed  the  popu- 
lar mind  that  Constantine,  as  we  have  seen,  not  only 
allowed  himself  to  be  converted  by  a  miracle,  but 
used  enchantment  as  an  engine  of  war. 

The  action  of  the  Milvian  Bridge,  fought  in  312, 
by  which  Constantine  established  himself  at  Rome, 
was  probably  the  point  whence  nature  began  to  dis- 
criminate decisively  against  the  vested  interest  of 
Western  Europe.  Capital  had  already  abandoned 
Italy;  Christianity  was  soon  after  officially  recog- 
nized, and  during  the  next  century  the  priest  began  to 
rank  with  the  soldier  as  a  force  in  war. 

Meanwhile,  as  the  population  sank  into  exhaustion, 
it  yielded  less  and  less  revenue,  the  police  deteriorated, 
and  the  guards  became  unable  to  protect  the  frontier. 
In  376,  the  Goths,  hard  pressed  by  the  Huns,  came  to 
the  Danube  and  implored  to  be  taken  as  subjects  by 
the  emperor.  After  mature  deliberation  the  Council 
of  Valens  granted  the  prayer,  and  some  five  hundred 
thousand  Germans  were  cantoned  in  Mossia.  The 
intention  of  the  government  was  to  scatter  this  multi- 
tude through  the  provinces  as  coloni,  or  to  draft  them 


PREFACE.  Ill 

into  the  legions;  but  the  detachment  detailed  to  handle 
them  was  too  feeble,  the  Goths  mutinied,  cut  the 
guard  to  pieces,  and  having  ravaged  Thrace  for  two 
years,  defeated  and  killed  Valens  at  Hadrianople.  In 
another  generation  the  disorganization  of  the  Roman 
army  had  become  complete,  and  Alaric  gave  it  its 
death-blow  in  his  campaign  of  410. 

Alaric  was  not  a  Gothic  king,  but  a  barbarian  de- 
serter, who,  in  392,  was  in  the  service  of  Theodosius. 
Subsequently  he  sometimes  held  imperial  commands, 
and  sometimes  led  bands  of  marauders  on  his  own 
account,  but  was  always  in  difficulty  about  his  pay. 
Finally,  in  the  revolution  in  which  Stilicho  was  mur- 
dered, a  corps  of  auxiliaries  mutinied  and  chose  him 
their  general.  Alleging  that  his  arrears  were  unpaid, 
Alaric  accepted  the  command,  and  with  this  army 
sacked  Rome. 

During  the  campaign  the  attitude  of  the  Christians 
was  more  interesting  than  the  strategy  of  the  soldiers. 
Alaric  was  a  robber,  leading  mutineers,  and  yet  the 
orthodox  historians  did  not  condemn  him.  They  did 
not  condemn  him  because  the  sacred  class  instinctively 
loved  the  barbarians  whom  they  could  overawe, 
whereas  they  could  make  little  impression  on  the  ma- 
terialistic intellect  of  the  old  centralized  society.  Un- 
der the  empire  the  priests,  like  all  other  individuals,  had 
to  obey  the  power  which  paid  the  police;  and  as  long  as 
a  revenue  could  be  drawn  from  the  provinces,  the 
Christian  hierarchy  were  subordinate  to  the  monied 
bureaucracy  who  had  the  means  to  coerce  them. 


112  PREFACE. 

Yet  only  very  slowly,  as  the  empire  disintegrated,  did 
the  theocratic  idea  take  shape.  As  late  as  the  ninth 
century  the  pope  prostrated  himself  before  Charle- 
magne, and  did  homage  as  to  a  Roman  emperor.1 

Saint  Benedict  founded  Monte  Cassino  in  529,  but 
centuries  elapsed  before  the  Benedictine  order  rose  to 
power.  The  early  convents  were  isolated  and  feeble, 
and  much  at  the  mercy  of  the  laity,  who  invaded  and 
debauched  them.  Abbots,  like  bishops,  were  often 
soldiers,  who  lived  within  the  walls  with  their  wives 
and  children,  their  hawks,  their  hounds,  and  their 
men-at-arms;  and  it  has  been  said  that,  in  all  France, 
Corbie  and  Fleury  alone  kept  always  something  of 
their  early  discipline. 

Only  in  the  early  years  of  the  most  lurid  century  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  when  decentralization  culminated, 
and  the  imagination  began  to  gain  its  fullest  intensity, 
did  the  period  of  monastic  consolidation  open  with  the 
foundation  of  Cluny.  In  910  William  of  Aquitaine 
draw  a  charter  2  which,  so  far  as  possible,  provided  for 
the  complete  independence  of  his  new  corporation. 
There  was  no  episcopal  visitation,  and  no  interference 
with  the  election  of  the  abbot.  The  monks  were  put 
directly  under  the  protection  of  the  pope,  who  was 
made  their  sole  superior.  John  XI  confirmed  this  char- 
ter by  his  bull  of  932,  and  authorized  the  affiliation  of 
all  converts  who  wished  to  share  hi  the  reform.3 

1  Perz,  Annales  Lauressenses,  i,  188. 
*  Bruel,  Recueil  des  Charles  de  VAbbaye  de  Cluny,  i,  124. 
3  Evil.  Clun.  p.  2,  col.  1.  Also  Luchaire,  Manuel  des  Institutions 
Frangaises,  93,  95,  where  the  authorities  are  collected. 


PREFACE.  113 

The  growth  of  Cluny  was  marvellous;  by  the 
twelfth  century  two  thousand  houses  obeyed  its  rule, 
and  its  wealth  was  so  great,  and  its  buildings  so  vast, 
that  in  1245  Innocent  IV,  the  Emperor  Baldwin,  and 
Saint  Louis  were  all  lodged  together  within  its  walls, 
and  with  them  all  the  attendant  trains  of  prelates 
and  nobles  with  their  servants. 

In  the  eleventh  century  no  other  force  of  equal  en- 
ergy existed.  The  monks  were  the  most  opulent,  the 
ablest,  and  the  best  organized  society  in  Europe,  and 
their  effect  upon  mankind  was  proportioned  to  their 
strength.  They  intuitively  sought  autocratic  power, 
and  during  the  centuries  when  nature  favored  them, 
they  passed  from  triumph  to  triumph.  They  first 
seized  upon  the  papacy  and  made  it  self -perpetuating; 
they  then  gave  battle  to  the  laity  for  the  possession 
of  the  secular  hierarchy,  which  had  been  under  tem- 
poral control  since  the  very  foundation  of  the  Church. 

According  to  the  picturesque  legend,  Bruno,  Bishop 
of  Toul,  seduced  by  the  flattery  of  courtiers  and  the 
allurements  of  ambition,  accepted  the  tiara  from  the 
emperor,  and  set  out  upon  his  journey  to  Italy  with  a 
splendid  retinue,  and  with  his  robe  and  crown.  On  his 
way  he  turned  aside  at  Cluny,  where  Hildebrand  was 
prior.  Hildebrand,  filled  with  the  spirit  of  God,  re- 
proached him  with  having  seized  upon  the  seat  of  the 
vicar  of  Christ  by  force,  and  accepted  the  holy  office 
from  the  sacrilegious  hand  of  a  layman.  He  exhorted 
Bruno  to  cast  away  his  pomp,  and  to  cross  the  Alps 
humbly  as  a  pilgrim,  assuring  him  that  the  priests  and 


114  PREFACE. 

people  of  Rome  would  recognize  him  as  their  bishop, 
and  elect  him  according  to  canonical  forms.  Then  he 
would  taste  the  joys  of  a  pure  conscience,  having  en- 
tered the  fold  of  Christ  as  a  shepherd  and  not  as  a  rob- 
ber. Inspired  by  these  words,  Bruno  dismissed  his 
train,  and  left  the  convent  gate  as  a  pilgrim.  He 
walked  barefoot,  and  when  after  two  months  of  pious 
meditations  he  stood  before  Saint  Peter's,  he  spoke  to 
the  people  and  told  them  it  was  their  privilege  to  elect 
the  pope,  and  since  he  had  come  unwillingly  he  would 
return  again,  were  he  not  their  choice. 

He  was  answered  with  acclamations,  and  on  Feb- 
ruary 2,  1049,  he  was  enthroned  as  Leo  IX.  His  first 
act  was  to  make  Hildebrand  his  minister. 

The  legend  tells  of  the  triumph  of  Cluny  as  no  his- 
torical facts  could  do.  Ten  years  later,  in  the  reign  of 
Nicholas  II,  the  theocracy  made  itself  self-perpetuat- 
ing through  the  assumption  of  the  election  of  the  pope 
by  the  college  of  cardinals,  and  in  1073  Hildebrand,  the 
incarnation  of  monasticism,  was  crowned  under  the 
name  of  Gregory  VII. 

With  Hildebrand's  election,  war  began.  The  Coun- 
cil of  Rome,  held  in  1075,  decreed  that  holy  orders 
should  not  be  recognized  where  investiture  had  been 
granted  by  a  layman,  and  that  princes  guilty  of  con- 
ferring investiture  should  be  excommunicated.  The 
Council  of  the  next  year,  which  excommunicated  the 
emperor,  also  enunciated  the  famous  propositions  of 
Baronius  —  the  full  expression  of  the  theocratic  idea. 
The  priest  had  grown  to  be  a  god  on  earth. 


PREFACE.  115 

"So  strong  in  this  confidence,  for  the  honour  and 
defence  of  your  Church,  on  behalf  of  the  omnipotent 
God,  the  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  by 
your  power  and  authority,  I  forbid  the  government  of 
the  German  and  Italian  kingdoms,  to  King  Henry, 
the  son  of  the  Emperor  Henry,  who,  with  unheard-of 
arrogance,  has  rebelled  against  your  Church.  I  ab- 
solve all  Christians  from  the  oaths  they  have  made 
or  may  make  to  him,  and  I  forbid  that  any  one  should 
obey  him  as  king."  1 

Henry  marched  on  Italy,  but  in  all  European  history 
there  has  been  no  drama  more  tremendous  than  the  ex- 
piation of  his  sacrilege.  To  his  soldiers  the  world  was 
a  vast  space,  peopled  by  those  fantastic  beings  which 
are  still  seen  on  Gothic  towers.  These  demons  obeyed 
the  monk  of  Rome,  and  his  army,  melting  from  about 
the  emperor  under  a  nameless  horror,  left  him  helpless. 

Gregory  lay  like  a  magician  in  the  fortress  of  Ca- 
nossa:  but  he  had  no  need  of  carnal  weapons,  for  when 
the  emperor  reached  the  Alps  he  was  almost  alone. 
Then  his  imagination  also  took  fire,  the  panic  seized 
him,  and  he  sued  for  mercy. 

On  August  7,  1106,  Henry  died  at  Liege,  an  outcast 
and  a  mendicant,  and  for  five  long  years  his  body  lay 
at  the  church  door,  an  accursed  thing  which  no  man 
dared  to  bury. 

Gregory  prevailed  because,  to  the  understanding 
of  the  eleventh  century,  the  evidence  at  hand  indicated 
that  he  embodied  in  a  high  degree  the  infinite  energy. 
1  Migne,  CXLVIII,  790. 


116  PREFACE. 

The  eleventh  century  was  intensely  imaginative  and 
the  evidence  which  appealed  to  it  was  those  phenom- 
ena of  trance,  hypnotism,  and  catalepsy  which  are  as 
mysterious  now  as  they  were  then,  but  whose  effect 
was  then  to  create  an  overpowering  demand  for  mir- 
acle-working substances.  The  sale  of  these  substances 
gradually  drew  the  larger  portion  of  the  wealth  of  the 
community  into  the  hands  of  the  clergy,  and  with 
wealth  went  temporal  power.  No  vested  interest  in 
any  progressive  community  has  probably  ever  been 
relatively  stronger,  for  the  Church  found  no  difficulty, 
when  embarrassed,  in  establishing  and  operating  a 
thorough  system  for  exterminating  her  critics. 

Under  such  a  pressure  modern  civilization  must  have 
sunk  into  some  form  of  caste  had  the  medieval  mind 
resembled  any  antecedent  mind,  but  the  middle  age, 
though  superficially  imaginative,  was  fundamentally 
materialistic,  as  the  history  of  the  crusades  showed. 

At  Canossa  the  laity  conceded  as  a  probable  hy- 
pothesis that  the  Church  could  miraculously  control 
nature;  but  they  insisted  that  if  the  Church  possessed 
such  power,  she  must  use  that  power  for  the  common 
good.  Upon  this  point  they  would  not  compromise, 
nor  would  they  permit  delay.  During  the  chaos  of 
the  ninth  century  turmoil  and  violence  reached  a  stage 
at  which  the  aspirations  of  most  Christians  ended 
with  self -preservation;  but  when  the  discovery  and 
working  of  the  Harz  silver  had  brought  with  it  some 
semblance  of  order,  an  intense  yearning  possessed 
both  men  and  women  to  ameliorate  their  lot.  If  relics 


PREFACE.  117 

could  give  protection  against  oppression,  disease,  fam- 
ine, and  death,  then  relics  must  be  obtained,  and,  if  the 
cross  and  the  tomb  were  the  most  effective  relics,  then 
the  cross  and  the  tomb  must  be  conquered  at  any 
cost.  In  the  north  of  Europe  especially,  misery  was 
so  acute  that  the  people  gladly  left  their  homes  upon 
the  slenderest  promise  of  betterment,  even  following 
a  vagrant  like  Peter  the  Hermit,  who  was  neither  sol- 
dier nor  priest.  There  is  a  passage  in  William  of  Tyre 
which  has  been  often  quoted  to  explain  a  frenzy  which 
is  otherwise  inexplicable,  and  in  the  old  English  of 
Caxton  the  words  still  glow  with  the  same  agony  which 
makes  lurid  the  supplication  of  the  litany,  —  "From 
battle  and  murder,  and  from  sudden  death,  Good 
Lord  deliver  us": 

"Of  chary te  men  spack  not,  debates,  discordes,  and 
warres  were  nyhe  oueral,  in  suche  wyse,  that  it  seemed, 
that  thende  of  the  world  was  nyghe,  by  the  signes 
that  our  lord  sayth  in  the  gospell,  ffor  pestylences  and 
famynes  were  grete  on  therthe,  ferdfulness  of  heuen, 
tremblyng  of  therthe  in  many  places,  and  many  other 
thinges  there  were  that  ought  to  fere  the  hertes  of 
men.  .  .  . 

"Theprynces  and  the  barons  brente  and  destroyed 
the  contrees  of  theyr  neyghbours,  yf  ony  man  had 
saved  ony  thynge  in  theyr  kepyng,  theyr  owne  lordes 
toke  them  and  put  them  in  prison  and  in  greuous  tor- 
mentis,  for  to  take  fro  them  suche  as  they  had,  in  suche 
qyse  that  the  chyldren  of  them  that  had  ben  riche 
men,  men  myght  see  them  goo  fro  dore  to  dore,  for  to 


118  PREFACE. 

begge  and  gete  theyr  brede,  and  some  deye  for  hungre 
and  mesease."  1 

Throughout  the  eleventh  century  the  excitement 
touching  the  virtues  of  the  holy  places  in  Judea  grew, 
until  Gregory  VII,  about  the  time  of  Canossa,  per- 
ceived that  a  paroxysm  was  at  hand,  and  considered 
leading  it,  but  on  the  whole  nothing  is  so  suggestive 
of  the  latent  scepticism  of  the  age  as  the  irresolution 
of  the  popes  at  this  supreme  moment.  The  laity  were 
the  pilgrims  and  the  agitators.  The  kings  sought  the 
relics  and  took  the  cross;  the  clergy  hung  back.  Rob- 
ert, Duke  of  Normandy,  for  example,  the  father  of 
William  the  Conqueror,  died  in  1035  from  hardship  at 
Nicaea  when  returning  from  Palestine,  absorbed  to  the 
last  in  the  relics  which  he  had  collected,  but  the  popes 
stayed  at  home.  Whatever  they  may  have  said  in  pri- 
vate, neither  Hildebrand  nor  Victor  nor  Urban  moved 
officially  until  they  were  swept  forward  by  the  torrent. 
They  shunned  responsibility  for  a  war  which  they 
would  have  passionately  promoted  had  they  been 
sure  of  victory.  The  man  who  finally  kindled  the 
conflagration  was  a  half -mad  fanatic,  a  stranger  to  the 
hierarchy.  No  one  knew  the  family  of  Peter  the  Her- 
mit, or  whence  he  came,  but  he  certainly  was  not  an 
ecclesiastic  in  good  standing.  Inflamed  by  fasting 
and  penance,  Peter  followed  the  throng  of  pilgrims  to 
Jerusalem,  and  there,  wrought  upon  by  what  he  saw,  he 
sought  the  patriarch.  Peter  asked  the  patriarch  if 

1  Godeffroy  of  Bologne,  by  William,  Archbishop  of  Tyre,  trans- 
lated from  the  French  by  William  Caxton,  London,  1893,  21,  22. 


PREFACE.  119 

nothing  could  be  done  to  protect  the  pilgrims,  and  to 
retrieve  the  Holy  Places.  The  patriarch  replied, 
"Nothing,  unless  God  will  touch  the  heart  of  the  west- 
ern princes,  and  will  send  them  to  succor  the  Holy 
City."  The  patriarch  did  not  propose  meddling  him- 
self, nor  did  it  occur  to  him  that  the  pope  should  inter- 
vene. He  took  a  rationalistic  view  of  the  Moslem 
military  power.  Peter,  on  the  contrary,  was  logical, 
arguing  from  eleventh-century  premises.  If  he  could 
but  receive  a  divine  mandate,  he  would  raise  an  invin- 
cible army.  He  prayed.  His  prayer  was  answered. 
One  day  while  prostrated  before  the  sepulchre  he  heard 
Christ  charge  him  to  announce  in  Europe  that  the  ap- 
pointed hour  had  come.  Furnished  with  letters  from 
the  patriarch,  Peter  straightway  embarked  for  Rome 
to  obtain  Urban's  sanction  for  his  design.  Urban 
listened  and  gave  a  consent  which  he  could  not  pru- 
dently have  withheld,  but  he  abstained  from  partici- 
pating in  the  propaganda.  In  March,  1095,  Urban 
called  a  Council  at  Piacenza,  nominally  to  consider 
the  deliverance  of  Jerusalem,  and  this  Council  was 
attended  by  thirty  thousand  impatient  laymen,  only 
waiting  for  the  word  to  take  the  vow,  but  the  pope  did 
nothing.  Even  at  Clermont  eight  months  later,  he 
showed  a  disposition  to  deal  with  private  war,  or 
church  discipline,  or  with  anything  in  fact  rather  than 
with  the  one  engrossing  question  of  the  day,  but  this 
time  there  was  no  escape.  A  vast  multitude  of  de- 
termined men  filled  not  only  Clermont  but  the  adja- 
cent towns  and  villages,  even  sleeping  in  the  fields,  al- 


120  PREFACE. 

though  the  weather  was  bitterly  cold,  who  demanded 
to  know  the  policy  of  the  Church.  Urban  seems  to 
have  procrastinated  as  long  as  he  safely  could,  but,  at 
length,  at  the  tenth  session,  he  produced  Peter  on  the 
platform,  clad  as  a  pilgrim,  and,  after  Peter  had  spoken9 
he  proclaimed  the  war.  Urban  declined,  however,  to 
command  the  army.  The  only  effective  force  which 
marched  was  a  body  of  laymen,  organized  and  led  by 
laymen,  who  in  1099  carried  Jerusalem  by  an  ordinary 
assault.  In  Jerusalem  they  found  the  cross  and  the 
sepulchre,  and  with  these  relics  as  the  foundation  of 
their  power,  the  laity  began  an  experiment  which  lasted 
eighty-eight  years,  ending  in  1187  with  the  battle  of 
Tiberias.  At  Tiberias  the  infidels  defeated  the  Chris- 
tians, captured  their  king  and  their  cross,  and  shortly 
afterward  seized  the  tomb. 

If  the  eleventh-century  mind  had  been  as  rigid  as 
the  Roman  mind  of  the  first  century,  mediaeval  civiliza- 
tion could  hardly,  after  the  collapse  of  the  crusades, 
have  failed  to  degenerate  as  Roman  civilization  de- 
generated after  the  defeat  of  Varus.  Being  more  elas- 
tic, it  began,  under  an  increased  tension,  to  develop 
new  phases  of  thought.  The  effort  was  indeed  prodi- 
gious and  the  absolute  movement  possibly  slow,  but  a 
change  of  intellectual  attitude  may  be  detected  almost 
contemporaneously  with  the  fall  of  the  Latin  kingdom 
in  Palestine.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  thirteenth 
century  was  the  century  in  which  imaginative  thought 
reached  its  highest  brilliancy,  when  Albertus  Magnus 
and  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas  taught,  when  Saint  Fran- 


PREFA  CE.  121 

cis  and  Saint  Clara  lived,  and  when  Thomas  of  Celano 
wrote  the  Dies  Irae.  It  was  then  that  Gothic  architec- 
ture touched  its  climax  in  the  cathedrals  of  Chartres 
and  Amiens,  of  Bourges  and  of  Paris;  it  was  then  also 
that  Blanche  of  Castile  ruled  in  France  and  that 
Saint  Louis  bought  the  crown  of  thorns,  but  it  is 
equally  true  that  the  death  of  Saint  Louis  occurred 
in  1270,  shortly  after  the  thorough  organization  of  the 
Inquisition  by  Innocent  IV  in  1252,  and  within  two 
years  or  so  of  the  production  by  Roger  Bacon  of  his 
Opus  Majus. 

The  establishment  of  the  Inquisition  is  decisive,  be- 
cause it  proves  that  sceptical  thought  had  been  spread 
far  enough  to  goad  the  Church  to  general  and  system- 
atic repression,  while  the  Opus  Majus  is  a  scientific 
exposition  of  the  method  by  which  the  sceptical  mind 
is  trained. 

Roger  Bacon  was  born  about  1214,  and  going  early 
to  Oxford  fell  under  the  influence  of  the  most  liberal 
teachers  in  Europe,  at  ^  whose  head  stood  Robert 
Grosseteste,  afterward  Bishop  of  Lincoln.  Bacon  con- 
ceived a  veneration  for  Grosseteste,  and  even  for 
Adam  de  Marisco  his  disciple,  and  turning  toward 
mathematics  rather  than  toward  metaphysics  he  ea- 
gerly applied  himself,  when  he  went  to  Paris,  to  astrol- 
ogy and  alchemy,  which  were  the  progenitors  of  the 
modern  exact  sciences.  In  the  thirteenth  century  a 
young  man  like  Bacon  could  hardly  stand  alone,  and 
Bacon  joined  the  Franciscans,  but  before  many  years 
elapsed  he  embroiled  himself  with  his  superiors.  His 


122  PREFACE. 

friend,  Grosseteste,  died  in  1253,  the  year  after  In- 
nocent IV  issued  the  bull  Ad  extirpanda  establishing 
the  Inquisition,  and  Bacon  felt  the  consequences. 
The  general  of  his  order,  Saint  Bonaventura,  with- 
drew him  from  Oxford  where  he  was  prominent,  and 
immured  him  in  a  Parisian  convent,  treating  him  rig- 
orously, as  Bacon  intimated  to  Pope  Clement  IV. 
There  he  remained,  silenced,  for  some  ten  years,  until 
the  election  of  Clement  IV,  in  1265.  Bacon  at  once 
wrote  to  Clement  complaining  of  his  imprisonment, 
and  deploring  to  the  pope  the  plight  into  which  sci- 
entific education  had  fallen.  The  pope  replied  direct- 
ing Bacon  to  explain  his  views  in  a  treatise,  but  did 
not  order  his  release.  In  response  Bacon  composed 
the  Opus  Majus. 

The  Opus  Majus  deals  among  other  things  with  ex- 
perimental science,  and  in  the  introductory  chapter  to 
the  sixth  part  Bacon  stated  the  theory  of  inductive 
thought  quite  as  lucidly  as  did  Francis  Bacon  three 
and  a  half  centuries  later  in  the  Novum  Organum.1 

Clement  died  in  1268.  The  papacy  remained  vacant 
for  a  couple  of  years,  but  in  1271  Gregory  X  came  in 

1  Positis  radicibus  sapientiae  Latinorum  penes  Linguas  et  Math- 
ematicam  et  Perspectivam,  nunc  volo  revolvere  radices  a  parte  Sci- 
entiae  Experimentalis,  quia  sine  experientia  nihil  sufficienter 
scire  protest.  Duo  enim  sunt  modi  cognoscendi,  scilicet  per  argu- 
mentum  et  experimentum.  Argumentum  concludit  et  facit  nos 
concedere  conclusionem,  sed  non  certificat  neque  removet  dubita- 
tionem  utquiescat  animus  in  intuitu  veritatis,  nisi  earn  inveniat  via 
experientiae;  quia  multi  babent  argumenta  ad  scibilia,  sed  quia  non 
habent  experientiam,  negligunt  ea,  nee  vitant  nociva  nex  perse- 
quuntue  bona.  J.  H.  Bridges,  The  Opus  Majus  of  Roger  Bacon  (Ox- 
ford, 1897),  H,  167. 


PREFACE.  123 

on  a  conservative  reaction.  Bacon  passed  most  of  the 
rest  of  his  life  in  prison,  perhaps  through  his  own  un- 
governable temper,  and  ostensibly  his  writings  seem  to 
have  had  little  or  no  effect  on  his  contemporaries,  yet 
it  is  certain  that  he  was  not  an  isolated  specimen  of  a 
type  of  intelligence  which  suddenly  bloomed  during 
the  Reformation.  Bacon  constantly  spoke  of  his 
friends,  but  his  friends  evidently  did  not  share  his  tem- 
perament. The  scientific  man  has  seldom  relished 
martyrdom,  and  Galileo's  experience  as  late  as  1633 
shows  what  risks  men  of  science  ran  who  even  indirectly 
attacked  the  vested  interests  of  the  Church.  After 
the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  danger  was 
real  enough  to  account  for  any  degree  of  secretiveness, 
and  a  striking  case  of  this  timidity  is  related  by  Bacon 
himself.  No  one  knows  even  the  name  of  the  man 
to  whom  Bacon  referred  as  "Master  Peter,"  but  ac- 
cording to  Bacon,  "Master  Peter"  was  the  greatest 
and  most  original  genius  of  the  age,  only  he  shunned 
publicity.  The  "  Dominus  experimentorum, "  as  Bacon 
called  him,  lived  in  a  safe  retreat  and  devoted  himself 
to  mathematics,  chemistry,  and  the  mechanical  arts 
with  such  success  that,  Bacon  insisted,  he  could  by  his 
inventions  have  aided  Saint  Louis  in  his  crusade  more 
than  his  whole  army.1  Nor  is  this  assertion  altogether 
fantastic.  Bacon  understood  the  formula  for  gun- 
powder, and  if  Saint  Louis  had  been  provided  with 
even  a  poor  explosive  he  might  have  taken  Cairo;  not 
to  speak  of  the  terror  which  Greek  fire  always  inspired. 
1  fimile  Charles,  Roger  Bacon,  Sa  vie  et  ses  outrages,  17. 


124  PREFACE. 

Saint  Louis  met  his  decisive  defeat  in  a  naval  battle 
fought  in  1250,  for  the  command  of  the  Nile,  by  which 
he  drew  supplies  from  Damietta,  and  he  met  it,  ac- 
cording to  Matthew  Paris,  because  his  ships  could  not 
withstand  Greek  fire.  Gunpowder,  even  in  a  very 
simple  form,  might  have  changed  the  fate  of  the  war. 

Scepticism  touching  the  value  of  relics  as  a  means 
for  controlling  nature  was  an  effect  of  experiment,  and, 
logically  enough,  scepticism  advanced  fastest  among 
certain  ecclesiastics  who  dealt  in  relics.  For  example, 
in  1248  Saint  Louis  undertook  to  invade  Egypt  in  de- 
fence of  the  cross.  Possibly  Saint  Louis  may  have 
been  affected  by  economic  considerations  also  touching 
the  eastern  trade,  but  his  ostensible  object  was  a  cru 
sade.  The  risk  was  very  great,  the  cost  enormous,  and 
the  responsibility  the  king  assumed  of  the  most  serious 
kind.  Nothing  that  he  could  do  was  left  undone  to  en- 
sure success.  In  1249  he  captured  Damietta,  and  then 
stood  in  need  of  every  pound  of  money  and  of  every 
man  that  Christendom  could  raise;  yet  at  this  crisis  the 
Church  thought  chiefly  of  making  what  it  could  in 
cash  out  of  the  war,  the  inference  being  that  the  hier- 
archy suspected  that  even  if  Saint  Louis  prevailed  and 
occupied  Jerusalem,  little  would  be  gained  from  an  ec- 
clesiastical standpoint.  At  all  events,  Matthew  Paris 
has  left  an  account,  in  his  chronicle  of  the  year  1249, 
of  how  the  pope  and  the  Franciscans  preached  this 
crusade,  which  is  one  of  the  most  suggestive  passages 
in  thirteenth-century  literature: 

"About  the  same  time,  by  command  of  the  pope, 


PREFACE.  125 

whom  they  obeyed  implicitly,  the  Preacher  and  Minor- 
ite brethren  diligently  employed  themselves  in  preach- 
ing; and  to  increase  the  devotion  of  the  Christians,  they 
went  with  great  solemnity  to  the  places  where  their 
preaching  was  previously  indicated,  and  granted  many 
days  of  indulgence  to  those  who  came  to  hear  them.  .  .  . 
Preaching  on  behalf  of  the  cross,  they  bestowed  that 
symbol  on  people  of  every  age,  sex  and  rank,  whatever 
their  property  or  worth,  and  even  on  sick  men  and 
women,  and  those  who  were  deprived  of  strength  by 
sickness  or  old  age;  and  on  the  next  day,  or  even  di- 
rectly afterwards,  receiving  it  back  from  them,  they 
absolved  them  from  their  vow  of  pilgrimage,  for  what- 
ever sum  they  could  obtain  for  the  favour.  What 
seemed  unsuitable  and  absurd  was,  that  not  many  days 
afterwards,  Earl  Richard  collected  all  this  money  in 
his  treasury,  by  the  agency  of  Master  Bernard,  an 
Italian  clerk,  who  gathered  in  the  fruit;  whereby  no 
slight  scandal  arose  in  the  Church  of  God,  and  amongst 
the  people  in  general,  and  the  devotion  of  the  faithful 
evidently  cooled."  l 

When  the  unfortunate  Baldwin  II  became  Emperor 
of  the  East  in  1237,  the  relics  of  the  passion  were  his 
best  asset.  In  1238,  while  Baldwin  was  in  France  try- 
ing to  obtain  aid,  the  French  barons  who  carried  on 
the  government  at  Constantinople  in  his  absence  were 
obliged  to  pledge  the  crown  of  thorns  to  an  Italian 
syndicate  for  13,134  perpera,  which  Gibbon  conjectures 

1  Matthew  Paris,  English  History,  translated  by  the  Rev.  J.  A. 
Giles,  ii,  309. 


126  PREFACE. 

to  have  been  besants.  Baldwin  was  notified  of  the 
pledge  and  urged  to  arrange  for  its  redemption.  He 
met  with  no  difficulty.  He  confidently  addressed  him- 
self to  Saint  Louis  and  Queen  Blanche,  and  "Although 
the  king  felt  keen  displeasure  at  the  deplorable  condi- 
tion of  Constantinople,  he  was  well  pleased,  neverthe- 
less, with  the  opportunity  of  adorning  France  with  the 
richest  and  most  precious  treasure  in  all  Christendom." 
More  especially  with  "a  relic,  and  a  sacred  object 
which  was  not  on  the  commercial  market."  1 

Louis,  beside  paying  the  loan  and  the  cost  of  transpor- 
tation which  came  to  two  thousand  French  pounds  (the 
mark  being  then  coined  into  £2,  15  sous  and  6  pence), 
made  Baldwin  a  present  of  ten  thousand  pounds  for 
acting  as  broker.  Baldwin  was  so  well  contented  with 
this  sale  which  he  closed  in  1239,  that  a  couple  of  years 
later  he  sent  to  Paris  all  the  contents  of  his  private 
chapel  which  had  any  value.  Part  of  the  treasure  was 
a  fragment  of  what  purported  to  be  the  cross,  but  the 
authenticity  of  this  relic  was  doubtful;  there  was  be- 
side, however,  the  baby  linen,  the  spear-head,  the 
sponge,  and  the  chain,  beside  several  miscellaneous 
articles  like  the  rod  of  Moses. 

Louis  built  the  Sainte  Chapelle  at  a  cost  of  twenty 
thousand  marks  as  a  shrine  in  which  to  deposit  them. 
The  Sainte  Chapelle  has  usually  ranked  as  the  most 
absolutely  perfect  specimen  of  mediaeval  religious  archi- 
tecture.2 

1  Du  Cange,  Histoire  de  rempire  de  Constantinople  sous  les  em- 
pereurs  Frangais,  edition  de  Buchon,  i,  259. 
^    2  On  this  whole  subject  of  the  inter-relation  of  mediaeval  theology 


PREFACE.  127 

When  Saint  Louis  bought  the  Crown  of  Thorns  from 
Baldwin  in  1239,  the  commercial  value  of  relics  may, 
possibly,  be  said  to  have  touched  its  highest  point,  but, 
in  fact,  the  adoration  of  them  had  culminated  with  the 
collapse  of  the  Second  Crusade,  and  in  another  century 
and  a  half  the  market  had  decisively  broken  and  the 
Reformation  had  already  begun,  with  the  advent  of 
Wycliffe  and  the  outbreak  of  Wat  Tyler's  Rebellion  in 
1381.  For  these  social  movements  have  always  a 
common  cause  and  reach  a  predetermined  result. 

In  the  eleventh  century  the  convent  of  Cluny,  for 
example,  had  an  enormous  and  a  perfectly  justified 
hold  upon  the  popular  imagination,  because  of  the 
sanctity  and  unselfishness  of  its  abbots.  Saint  Hugh 
won  his  sainthood  by  a  self-denial  and  effort  which 
were  impossible  to  ordinary  men,  but  with  Louis  IX 
the  penitential  life  had  already  lost  its  attractions  and 
men  like  Arnold  rapidly  brought  religion  and  religious 
thought  into  contempt.  The  famous  Grosseteste, 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  born,  probably,  in  1175,  died  in  1253. 
He  presided  over  the  diocese  of  Lincoln  at  the  precise 
moment  when  Saint  Louis  was  building  the  Sainte  Cha- 
pelle,  but  Grosseteste  in  1250  denounced  in  a  sermon 
at  Lyons  the  scandals  of  the  papal  court  with  a  ferocity 
which  hardly  was  surpassed  at  any  later  day. 

To  attempt  even  an  abstract  of  the  thought  of  the 
English  Reformation  would  lead  too  far,  however  fas- 

i  with  architecture  and  philosophy  the  reader  is  referred  to  Mont- 
Saint-Michel  et  Chartres,  by  Henry  Adams,  which  is  the  most  phil- 

:  osophical  and  thorough  exposition  of  this  subject  which  ever  has 
been  attempted. 


128  PREFACE. 

cinating  the  subject  might  be.  It  must  suffice  to  say 
briefly  that  theology  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
Wycliffe  denounced  the  friars  as  lazy,  profligate  im- 
postors, who  wrung  money  from  the  poor  which  they 
afterwards  squandered  in  ways  offensive  to  God,  and 
he  would  have  stultified  himself  had  he  admitted,  in 
the  same  breath,  that  these  reprobates,  when  united, 
formed  a  divinely  illuminated  corporation,  each  mem- 
ber of  which  could  and  did  work  innumerable  miracles 
through  the  interposition  of  Christ.  Ordinary  mir- 
acles, indeed,  could  be  tested  by  the  senses,  but  the  es- 
sence of  transubstantiation  was  that  it  eluded  the 
senses.  Thus  nothing  could  be  more  convenient  to 
the  government  than  to  make  this  invisible  and  in- 
tangible necromancy  a  test  in  capital  cases  for  heresy. 
Hence  Wycliffe  had  no  alternative  but  to  deny  tran- 
substantiation, for  nothing  could  be  more  insulting  to 
the  intelligence  than  to  adore  a  morsel  of  bread  which 
a  priest  held  in  his  hand.  The  pretension  of  the  priests 
to  make  the  flesh  of  Christ  was,  according  to  Wycliffe, 
an  impudent  fraud,  and  their  pretension  to  possess  this 
power  was  only  an  excuse  by  which  they  enforced  their 
claim  to  collect  fees,  and  what  amounted  to  extor- 
tionate taxes,  from  the  people.1  But,  in  the  main, 
no  dogma,  however  incomprehensible,  ever  troubled 
Protestants,  as  a  class.  They  easily  accepted  the  Trin- 
ity, the  double  procession,  or  the  Holy  Ghost  itself, 
though  no  one  had  the  slightest  notion  what  the  Holy 
1  Nowhere,  perhaps,  does  Wycliffe  express  himself  more  strongly 
on  this  subject  than  in  a  little  tract  called  The  Wicket,  written  in 
English,  which  he  issued  for  popular  consumption  about  this  time. 


PREFACE.  129 

Ghost  might  be.  Wycliffe  roundly  declared  in  the 
first  paragraph  of  his  confession l  that  the  body  of  Christ 
which  was  crucified  was  truly  and  really  in  the  conse- 
crated host,  and  Huss,  who  inherited  the  Wycliffian 
tradition,  answered  before  the  Council  of  Constance, 
"Verily,  I  do  think  that  the  body  of  Christ  is  really  and 
totally  in  the  sacrament  of  the  altar,  which  was  born 
of  the  Virgin  Mary,  suffered,  died,  and  rose  again,  and 
sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of  God  the  Father  Almighty."  2 
That  which  has  rent  society  in  twain  and  has  caused 
blood  to  flow  like  water,  has  never  been  abstract  opin- 
ions, but  that  economic  competition  either  between 
states  or  classes,  that  lust  for  power  and  wealth,  which 
makes  a  vested  interest.  Thus  by  1382  the  eucharist 
had  come  to  represent  to  the  privileged  classes  power 
and  wealth,  and  they  would  have  repudiated  Wycliffe 
even  had  they  felt  strong  enough  to  support  him.  But 
they  were  threatened  by  an  adversary  equally  formida- 
ble with  heresy  in  the  person  of  the  villeins  whom 
the  constantly  increasing  momentum  of  the  time  had 
raised  into  a  position  in  which  they  undertook  to  com- 
pete for  the  ownership  of  the  land  which  they  still 
tilled  as  technical  serfs. 

1  Fasciculi  Zizaniorum,  115. 

2  Foxe,  Acts  and  Monuments,  in,  452. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Now  the  courts  may  say  what  they  will  in  support  of 
the  vested  interests,  for  to  support  vested  interests  is 
what  lawyers  are  paid  for  and  what  courts  are  made  for. 
Only,  unhappily,  in  the  process  of  argument  courts 
and  lawyers  have  caused  blood  to  flow  copiously,  for  in 
spite  of  all  that  can  be  said  to  the  contrary,  men  have 
practically  proved  that  they  do  own  all  the  property 
they  can  defend,  all  the  courts  in  Christendom  not- 
withstanding, and  this  is  an  issue  of  physical  force  and 
not  at  all  of  words  or  of  parchments.  And  so  it  proved 
to  be  in  England  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  cen- 
turies, alike  in  Church  and  State.  It  was  a  matter 
of  rather  slow  development.  After  the  conquest  vil- 
leins could  neither  in  fact  nor  theory  acquire  or  hold 
property  as  against  their  lord,  and  the  class  of  land- 
lords stretched  upwards  from  the  owner  of  a  knight's 
fee  to  the  king  on  his  throne,  who  was  the  chief  landlord 
of  all,  but  by  so  narrow  a  margin  that  he  often  had 
enough  to  do  to  maintain  some  vestige  of  sovereignty. 
So,  to  help  himself,  it  came  to  pass  that  the  king 
intrigued  with  the  serfs  against  their  restive  masters, 
and  the  abler  the  king,  the  more  he  intrigued,  like 
Henry  I,  until  the  villeins  gained  very  substantial  ad- 
vantages. Thus  it  was  that  toward  1215,  or  pretty 
nearly  contemporaneously  with  the  epoch  when  men 
like  Grosseteste  began  to  show  restlessness  under  the 


PREFACE.  131 

extortionate  corruption  of  the  Church,  the  villein  was 
discovered  to  be  able  to  defend  his  claim  to  some 
portion  of  the  increment  in  the  value  of  the  land  which 
he  tilled  and  which  was  due  to  his  labor:  and  this  title 
the  manorial  courts  recognized,  because  they  could  not 
help  it,  as  a  sort  of  tenant  right,  calling  it  a  customary- 
tenancy  by  base  service.  A  century  later  these  serv- 
ices in  kind  had  been  pretty  frequently  commuted  into 
a  fixed  rent  paid  in  money,  and  the  serf  had  become 
a  freeman,  and  a  rather  formidable  freeman,  too.  For 
it  was  largely  from  among  these  technical  serfs  that 
Edward  III  recruited  the  infantry  who  formed  his  line 
at  Crecy  in  1346,  and  the  archers  of  Crecy  were  not 
exactly  the  sort  of  men  who  take  kindly  to  eviction,  to 
say  nothing  of  slavery.  As  no  one  meddled  much  with 
the  villeins  before  1349,  all  went  well  until  after  Crecy, 
but  in  1348  the  Black  Death  ravaged  England,  and  so 
many  laborers  died  that  the  cost  of  farming  property  by 
hired  hands  exceeded  the  value  of  the  rent  which  the 
villeins  paid.  Then  the  landlords,  under  the  usual  re- 
actionary and  dangerous  legal  advice,  tried  coercion. 
Their  first  experiment  was  the  famous  Statute  of  Labor- 
ers, which  fixed  wages  at  the  rates  which  prevailed  in 
1347,  but  as  this  statute  accomplished  nothing  the 
landlords  repudiated  their  contracts,  and  undertook 
to  force  their  villeins  to  render  their  ancient  customary 
services.  Though  the  lay  landlords  were  often  hard 
masters,  the  ecclesiastics,  especially  the  monks,  were 
harder  still,  and  the  ecclesiastics  were  served  by  law- 
yers of  their  own  cloth,  whose  sharp  practice  became 


132  PREFACE. 

proverbial.  Thus  the  law  declined  to  recognize  rights 
in  property  existing  in  fact,  with  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  peasant  rising  in  1381,  known  as  Wat  Tyler's 
Rebellion.  Popular  rage  perfectly  logically  ran  high- 
est against  the  monks  and  the  lawyers.  Both  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Simon  de  Sudbury,  the 
Lord  Chancellor,  and  the  Chief  Justice  were  killed,  and 
the  insurgents  wished  to  kill,  as  Capgrave  has  related, 
"all  the  men  that  had  learned  ony  law."  Finally  the 
rebellion  was  suppressed,  chiefly  by  the  duplicity  of 
Richard  II.  Richard  promised  the  people,  by  written 
charters,  a  permanent  tenure  as  freemen  at  reasonable 
rents,  and  so  induced  them  to  go  home  with  his  char- 
ters in  their  hands;  but  they  were  no  sooner  gone  than 
vengeance  began.  Though  Richard  had  been  at  the 
peasants'  mercy,  who  might  have  killed  him  had  they 
wished,  punitive  expeditions  were  sent  in  various  direc- 
tions. One  was  led  by  Richard  himself,  who  travelled 
with  Tresilian,  the  new  Chief  Justice,  the  man  who 
afterward  was  himself  hanged  at  Tyburn.  Tresilian 
worked  so  well  that  he  is  said  to  have  strung  up  a  dozen 
villeins  to  a  single  beam  in  Chelmsford  because  he  had 
no  time  to  have  them  executed  regularly.  Stubbs  has 
estimated  that  seven  thousand  victims  hardly  satis- 
fied the  landlords'  sense  of  outraged  justice.  What  con- 
cerns us,  chiefly,  is  that  this  repression,  however  savage, 
failed  altogether  to  bring  tranquillity.  After  1381  a 
full  century  of  social  chaos  supervened,  merging  at 
times  into  actual  civil  war,  until,  in  1485,  Henry  Tudor 
came  in  after  his  victory  at  Bosworth,  pledged  to  de- 


PREFACE.  133 

stroy  the  whole  reactionary  class  which  incarnated 
feudalism.  For  the  feudal  soldier  was  neither  flexible 
nor  astute,  and  allowed  himself  to  be  caught  between 
the  upper  and  the  nether  millstone.  While  industrial 
and  commercial  capital  had  been  increasing  in  the 
towns,  capitalistic  methods  of  farming  had  invaded  the 
country,  and,  as  police  improved,  private  and  preda- 
tory warfare,  as  a  business,  could  no  longer  be  made  to 
pay.  The  importance  of  a  feudal  noble  lay  in  the  body 
of  retainers  who  followed  his  banner,  and  therefore  the 
feudal  tendency  always  was  to  overcharge  the  estate 
with  military  expenditure.  Hence,  to  protect  them- 
selves from  creditors,  the  landlords  passed  the  Statute 
De  Donis  l  which  made  entails  inalienable.  Toward 
the  end  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  however,  the  pressure 
for  money,  which  could  only  be  raised  by  pledging 
their  land,  became  too  strong  for  the  feudal  aristocracy. 
Edward  IV,  who  was  a  very  able  man,  perceived,  pretty 
early  in  his  reign,  that  his  class  could  not  maintain 
themselves  unless  their  land  were  put  upon  a  commer- 
cial basis.  Therefore  he  encouraged  the  judges,  in 
the  collusive  litigation  known  to  us  as  Taltarum's  Case, 
decided  in  1472,  to  set  aside  the  Statute  De  Donis,  by 
the  fiction  of  the  Common  Recovery.  The  concession, 
even  so,  came  too  late.  The  combination  against  them 
had  grown  too  strong  for  the  soldiers  to  resist.  Other 
classes  evolved  by  competition  wanted  their  property, 
and  these  made  Henry  Tudor  king  of  England  to  seize 
it  for  them. 

1  13  Edw.  I,  c.  1  (A.D.  1284). 


134  PREFACE. 

Henry's  work  was  simple  enough.  After  Bos  worth, 
with  a  competent  police  force  at  hand  to  execute  proc- 
ess, he  had  only  to  organize  a  political  court,  and  to 
ruin  by  confiscatory  fines  all  the  families  strong 
enough,  or  rash  enough,  to  maintain  garrisoned 
houses.  So  Henry  remodelled  the  Star  Chamber,  in 
I486,1  to  deal  with  the  martial  gentry,  and  before  long 
a  new  type  of  intelligence  possessed  the  kingdom. 

The  feudal  soldiers  being  disposed  of,  it  remained  to 
evict  the  monks,  who  were  thus  left  without  their 
natural  defenders.  No  matter  of  faith  was  involved. 
Henry  VIII  boasted  that  in  doctrine  he  was  as  ortho- 
dox as  the  pope.  There  was,  however,  an  enormous 
monastic  landed  property  to  be  redistributed  This 
was  confiscated,  and  appropriated,  not  to  public  pur- 
poses, but,  as  usually  happens  in  revolutions,  to  the 
use  of  the  astutest  of  the  revolutionists.  Among  these, 
John  Russell,  afterward  Earl  of  Bedford,  stood  pre- 
eminent. Russell  had  no  particular  pedigree  or  genius, 
save  the  acquisitive  genius,  but  he  made  himself  useful 
to  Henry  in  such  judicial  murders  as  that  of  Richard 
Whiting,  Abbot  of  Glastonbury.  He  received  in  pay- 
ment, among  much  else,  Woburn  Abbey,  which  has 
since  remained  the  Bedford  country  seat,  and  Covent 
Garden  or  Convent  Garden,  one  of  the  most  valuable 
parcels  of  real  estate  in  London.  Covent  Garden  the 
present  duke  recently  sold,  anticipating,  perhaps,  some 
such  legislation  as  ruined  the  monks  and  made  his 
ancestor's  fortune.  As  for  the  monks  whom  Henry 
1  3  Henry  7,  C  1. 


PREFACE.  135 

evicted,  they  wandered  forth  from  their  homes  beg- 
gars, and  Henry  hanged  all  of  them  whom  he  could 
catch  as  vagrants.  How  many  perished  as  counter- 
poise for  the  peasant  massacres  and  Lollard  burnings 
of  the  foregoing  two  centuries  can  never  be  known, 
nor  to  us  is  it  material.  What  is  essential  to  mark, 
from  the  legal  standpoint,  is  that  while  this  long  and 
bloody  revolution,  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years, 
displaced  a  favored  class  and  confiscated  its  property, 
it  raised  up  in  their  stead  another  class  of  land  mo- 
nopolists, rather  more  greedy  and  certainly  quite  as 
cruel  as  those  whom  they  superseded.  Also,  in  spite 
of  all  opposition,  labor  did  make  good  its  claim  to  par- 
ticipate more  or  less  fully  in  the  ownership  of  the  prop- 
erty it  cultivated,  for  while  the  holding  of  the  ancient 
villein  grew  to  be  well  recognized  in  the  royal  courts 
as  a  copyhold  estate,  villeinage  itself  disappeared. 

Yet,  unless  I  profoundly  err,  in  the  revolution  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  the  law  somewhat  conspicuously 
failed  in  its  function  of  moderating  competition,  for  I 
am  persuaded  that  competition  of  another  kind  sharp- 
ened, and  shortly  caused  a  second  civil  war  bloodier 
than  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 

Fifteen  years  before  the  convents  were  seized,  Sir 
Thomas  More  wrote  Utopia,  in  whose  opening  chapter 
More  has  given  an  account  of  a  dinner  at  Cardinal 
Morton's,  who,  by  the  way,  presided  in  the  Star 
Chamber.  At  this  dinner  one  of  the  cardinal's  guests 
reflected  on  the  thievish  propensities  of  Englishmen, 
who  were  to  be  found  throughout  the  country  hanged 


136  PREFACE. 

as  felons,  sometimes  twenty  together  on  a  single 
gallows.  More  protested  that  this  was  not  the  fault 
of  the  poor  who  were  hanged,  but  of  rich  land  mo- 
nopolists, who  pastured  sheep  and  left  no  fields  for 
tillage.  According  to  More,  these  capitalists  plucked 
down  houses  and  even  towns,  leaving  nothing  but  the 
church  for  a  sheep-house,  so  that  "  by  covin  and  fraud, 
or  by  violent  oppression,  ...  or  by  wrongs  and  in- 
juries," the  husbandmen  "be  thrust  out  of  their  own," 
and,  "must  needs  depart  away,  poor,  wretched  souls, 
men,  women,  husbands,  wives,  fatherless  children, 
widows."  The  dissolution  of  the  convents  accelerated 
the  process,  and  more  and  more  of  the  weaker  yeo- 
manry were  ruined  and  evicted.  It  is  demonstrated 
that  the  pauperization  of  the  feebler  rural  population 
went  on  apace  by  the  passage  of  poor-laws  under  Eliza- 
beth, which,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  had  not  been  needed 
and,  therefore,  were  unknown.  This  movement,  de- 
scribed by  More,  was  the  beginning  of  the  system  of 
enclosing  common  lands  which  afterward  wrought 
havoc  among  the  English  yeomen,  and  which,  I  sup- 
pose, contributed  more  than  any  other  single  cause  to 
the  Great  Rebellion  of  the  seventeenth  century.  In 
the  mediaeval  village  the  owners  of  small  farms  en- 
joyed certain  rights  in  the  common  land  of  the  com- 
munity, affording  them  pasturage  for  their  cattle  and 
the  like,  rights  without  which  small  farming  could  not 
be  made  profitable.  These  commons  the  land  monop- 
olists appropriated,  sometimes  giving  some  shadow 
of  compensation,  sometimes  by  undisguised  force,  but 


PREFACE.  137 

on  the  whole  compensation  amounted  to  so  little  that 
the  enclosure  of  the  commons  must  rank  as  confisca- 
tion. Also  this  seizure  of  property  would  doubtless 
have  caused  a  convulsion  as  lasting  as  that  which  fol- 
lowed the  insurrection  of  1381,  or  as  did  actually  occur 
in  Ireland,  had  it  not  been  for  an  unparalleled  con- 
temporaneous territorial  and  industrial  expansion. 
Thorold  Rogers  always  insisted  that  between  1563,  the 
year  of  the  passage  of  the  Statute  of  Apprentices,1  and 
1824,  a  regular  conspiracy  existed  between  the  law- 
yers "and  the  parties  interested  in  its  success  .  .  . 
to  cheat  the  English  workman  of  his  wages,  .  .  .  and 
to  degrade  him  to  irremediable  poverty."  2  Certainly 
the  land  monopolists  resorted  to  strong  measures  to 
accumulate  land,  for  something  like  six  hundred  and 
fifty  Enclosure  Acts  were  passed  between  1760,  the 
opening  of  the  Industrial  Revolution,  and  1774,  the 
outbreak  of  the  American  War.  But  without  insist- 
ing on  Rogers's  view,  it  is  not  denied  that  the  weakest 
of  the  small  yeomen  sank  into  utter  misery,  becoming 
paupers  or  worse.  On  the  other  hand,  of  those  stronger 
some  emigrated  to  America,  others,  who  were  among 
the  ablest  and  the  boldest,  sought  fortune  as  adven- 
turers over  the  whole  earth,  and,  like  the  grand- 
father of  Chatham,  brought  home  from  India  as  smug- 
glers or  even  as  pirates,  diamonds  to  be  sold  to  kings 
for  their  crowns,  or,  like  Clive,  became  the  greatest 
generals  and  administrators  of  the  nation.  Probably, 
however,  by  far  the  majority  of  those  who  were  of 
1  5  Eliz.  c.  4.  2  Work  and  Wages,  398. 


138  PREFACE. 

average  capacity  found  compensation  for  the  confis- 
cated commons  in  domestic  industry,  owning  their 
houses  with  lots  of  land  and  the  tools  of  their  trade. 
Defoe  has  left  a  charming  description  of  the  region 
about  Halifax  in  Yorkshire,  toward  the  year  1730, 
where  he  found  the  whole  population  busy,  prosperous, 
healthy,  and,  in  the  main,  self-sufficing.  He  did  not 
see  a  beggar  or  an  idle  person  in  the  whole  country. 
So,  favored  by  circumstances,  the  landed  oligarchy  met 
with  no  effective  resistance  after  the  death  of  Crom- 
well, and  achieved  what  amounted  to  being  autocratic 
power  in  1688.  Their  great  triumph  was  the  conver- 
sion of  the  House  of  Commons  into  their  own  personal 
property,  about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, with  all  the  guaranties  of  law.  In  the  Middle 
Ages  the  chief  towns  of  England  had  been  summoned 
by  the  king  to  send  burgesses  to  Westminster  to  grant 
him  money,  but  as  time  elapsed  the  Commons  ac- 
quired influence  and,  in  1642,  became  dominant. 
Then,  after  the  Restoration,  the  landlords  -conceived 
the  idea  of  appropriating  the  right  of  representation, 
as  they  had  appropriated  and  were  appropriating  the 
common  lands.  Lord  John  Russell  one  day  observed 
in  the  House  of  Commons  that  the  burgesses  were 
originally  chosen  from  among  the  inhabitants  of  the 
towns  they  represented,  but  that,  in  the  reign  of  Anne, 
the  landlords,  to  depress  the  shipping  interest,  opened 
the  borough  representation  to  all  qualified  persons 
without  regard  to  domicile. :  Lord  John  was  mistaken 
1  36  Hansard,  Third  Series,  548. 


PREFACE.  139 

in  his  date,  for  the  change  occurred  earlier,  but  he  de- 
scribed correctly  enough  the  persistent  animus  of  the 
landlords.  An  important  part  of  their  policy  turned 
on  the  so-called  Determination  Acts  of  1696  and  1729, 
which  defined  the  franchises  and  which  had  the  effect 
of  confirming  the  titles  of  patrons  to  borough  property,1 
thus  making  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  an  incor- 
poreal hereditament  fully  recognized  by  law.  On  this 
point  so  high  an  authority  as  Lord  Eldon  was  em- 
phatic.2 By  the  time  of  the  American  War  the  oli- 
garchy had  become  so  narrow  that  one  hundred  and 
fifty -four  peers  and  commoners  returned  three  hundred 
and  seven  members,  or  much  more  than  a  majority  of 
the  House  as  then  organized.3  With  the  privileged  class 
reduced  to  these  contemptible  numbers  a  catastrophe 
necessarily  followed.  Almost  impregnable  as  the  posi- 
tion of  the  oligarchy  appeared,  it  yet  had  its  vulner- 
able point.  As  Burke  told  the  Duke  of  Portland,  a 
duke's  power  did  not  come  from  his  title,  but  from  his 
wealth,  and  the  landlords'  wealth  rested  on  their  ability 
to  draw  a  double  rent  from  their  estates,  one  rent  for 
themselves,  and  another  to  provide  for  the  farmer  to 
whom  they  let  their  acres.  Evidently  British  land  could 
not  bear  this  burden  if  brought  in  competition  with 
other  equally  good  land  that  paid  only  a  single  rent, 
and  from  a  pretty  early  period  the  landlords  appear  to 
have  been  alive  to  this  fact.  Nevertheless,  ocean 
freights  afforded  a  fair  protection,  and  as  long  as  the 

1  Porritt,  Unreformed  House  of  Commons,  i,  9,  et  seq. 

2  12  Hansard,  Third  Series,  396. 

3  Grey's  motion  for  Reform,  30  Par/.  Hist.  795  (A.D.  1793). 


140  PREFACE. 

industrial  population  remained  tolerably  self-support- 
ing, England  rather  tended  to  export  than  to  import 
grain.  But  toward  1760  advances  in  applied  science 
profoundly  modified  the  equilibrium  of  English  so- 
ciety. The  new  inventions,  stimulated  by  steam, 
could  only  be  utilized  by  costly  machinery  installed 
in  large  factories,  which  none  but  considerable  capi- 
talists could  build,  but  once  in  operation  the  product 
of  these  factories  undersold  domestic  labor,  and  ruined 
and  evicted  the  population  of  whole  regions  like  Hali- 
fax. These  unfortunate  laborers  were  thrust  in  abject 
destitution  into  filthy  and  dark  alleys  hi  cities,  where 
they  herded  in  masses,  in  misery  and  crime.  In  con- 
sequence grain  rose  in  value,  so  much  so  that  in 
1766  prayers  were  offered  touching  its  price.  Thence- 
forward England  imported  largely  from  America,  and 
in  1773  Parliament  was  constrained  to  reduce  the 
duty  on  wheat  to  a  point  lower  than  the  gentry 
conceded  again,  until  the  total  repeal  of  the  Corn 
Laws  in  1846. l  The  situation  was  well  understood  in 
London.  Burke,  Governor  Pownall,  and  others  ex- 
plained it  in  Parliament,  while  Chatham  implored 
the  landlords  not  to  alienate  America,  which  they 
could  not,  he  told  them,  conquer,  but  which  gave 
them  a  necessary  market,  —  a  market  as  he  aptly 
said,  both  of  supply  and  demand.  And  Chatham 
was  right,  for  America  not  only  supplied  the  grain  to 
feed  English  labor,  but  bought  from  Englan4  at  least 
one  third  of  all  her  surplus  manufactures. 

1  John  Morley,  The  Life  of  Richard  Cobden,  167,  note  5. 


PREFACE.  141 

This  brings  us  to  the  eighteenth  century,  which  di- 
rectly concerns  us,  because  the  religious  superstition, 
which  had  previously  caused  men  to  seek  in  a  conscious 
supreme  energy  the  effective  motor  in  human  affairs, 
had  waned,  and  the  problem  presented  was  reduced 
to  the  operation  of  that  acceleration  of  movement  by 
the  progress  of  applied  science  which  always  has  been, 
and  always  must  be,  the  prime  cause  of  the  quickening 
of  economic  competition  either  as  between  communi- 
ties or  as  between  individuals.  And  this  is  the  capital 
phenomenon  of  civilization.  For  it  is  now  generally 
admitted  that  war  is  nothing  but  economic  competition 
in  its  acutest  form.  When  competition  reaches  a  cer- 
tain intensity  it  kindles  into  war  or  revolution,  pre- 
cisely as  when  iron  is  raised  to  a  certain  heat  it  kindles 
into  flame.  And,  for  the  purposes  of  illustration,  pos- 
sibly the  best  method  of  showing  how  competition  was 
quickened,  and  how  it  affected  adjacent  communities 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  is  to  take  navigation, 
not  only  because  navigation  was  much  improved  dur- 
ing the  first  three  quarters  of  that  period,  but  because 
both  England  and  France  competed  for  control  in 
America  by  means  of  ships.  It  suffices  to  mention, 
very  succinctly,  a  few  of  the  more  salient  advances 
which  were  then  made. 

Toward  1761  John  Harrison  produced  the  chronom- 
eter, by  which  longitude  could  be  determined  at  sea, 
making  the  ship  independent  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
At  the  same  time  more  ingenious  rigging  increased  her 
power  of  working  to  windward.  With  such  advantages 


142  PREFACE. 

Captain  Cook  became  a  mighty  discoverer  both  in  the 
southern  and  western  oceans,  charted  New  Zealand 
and  much  else,  and  more  important  than  all,  in  1759  he 
surveyed  the  Saint  Lawrence  and  piloted  ships  up  the 
river,  of  which  he  had  established  the  channel.  Speak- 
ing of  Cook  naturally  leads  to  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  transportation  of  men,  sailors,  soldiers,  and 
emigrants,  on  long  voyages,  thereby  making  popula- 
tion fluid.  Cook,  in  his  famous  report,  read  before  the 
Royal  Society  in  March,  1776,  after  his  second  voyage, 
established  forever  the  hygienic  principles  by  observ- 
ing which  a  ship's  company  may  safely  be  kept  at  sea 
for  any  length  of  time.  Previously  there  had  always 
been  a  very  high  mortality  from  scurvy  and  kindred 
diseases,  which  had,  of  course,  operated  as  a  very 
serious  check  to  human  movement.  On  land  the  same 
class  of  phenomena  were  even  more  marked.  In  Eng- 
land the  Industrial  Revolution  is  usually  held  to  date 
from  1760,  and,  by  common  consent,  the  Industrial 
Revolution  is  attributed  altogether  to  applied  science, 
or,  in  other  words,  to  mechanical  inventions.  In  1760 
the  flying-shuttle  appeared,  and  coal  began  to  replace 
wood  for  smelting.  In  1764  Hargreaves  invented  the 
spinning- jenny;  in  1779  Crompton  contrived  the  mule; 
and  in  1768  Watt  brought  the  steam-engine  to  matu- 
rity. In  1761  the  first  boat-load  of  coals  sailed  over 
the  Barton  viaduct,  which  James  Brindley  built  for  the 
Duke  of  Bridgewater's  canal,  to  connect  Worsley  with 
Manchester,  thus  laying  the  foundation  of  British  in- 
land navigation,  which  before  the  end  of  the  century 


PREFACE.  143 

had  covered  England;  while  John  Metcalf,  the  blind 
roadbuilder,  began  his  lifework  in  1765.  He  was  des- 
tined to  improve  English  highways,  which  up  to  that 
time  had  been  mostly  impossible  for  wheeled  traffic. 
In  France  the  same  advance  went  on.  Arthur  Young 
described  the  impression  made  on  him  in  1789  by  the 
magnificence  of  the  French  roads  which  had  been  built 
since  the  administration  of  Colbert,  as  well  as  by  the 
canal  which  connected  the  Mediterranean  with  the 
Atlantic. 

In  the  midst  of  this  activity  Washington  grew  up. 
Washington  was  a  born  soldier,  engineer,  and  surveyor 
with  the  topographical  instinct  peculiar  to  that  temper- 
ament. As  early  as  1748  he  was  chosen  by  Lord  Fair- 
fax, who  recognized  his  ability,  though  only  sixteen 
years  old,  to  survey  his  vast  estate  west  of  the  Blue 
Ridge,  which  was  then  a  wilderness.  He  spent  three 
years  in  this  work  and  did  it  well.  In  1753  Governor 
Dinwiddie  sent  Washington  on  a  mission  to  the  French 
commander  on  the  Ohio,  to  warn  him  to  cease  tres- 
passing on  English  territory,  a  mission  which  Wash- 
ington fulfilled,  under  considerable  hardship  and  some 
peril,  with  eminent  success.  Thus  early,  for  he  was 
then  only  twenty-two,  Washington  gained  that 
thorough  understanding  of  the  North  American  river 
system  which  enabled  him,  many  years  afterward,  to 
construct  the  Republic  of  the  United  States  upon  the 
lines  of  least  resistant  intercommunication.  And 
Washington's  conception  of  the  problem  and  his 
solution  thereof  were,  in  substance,  this: 


144  PREFACE. 

The  American  continent,  west  of  the  mountains  and 
south  of  the  Great  Lakes,  is  traversed  in  all  directions 
by  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries,  but  we  may  con- 
fine our  attention  to  two  systems  of  watercourses,  the 
one  to  the  west,  forming  by  the  Wisconsin  and  the 
main  arm  of  the  Mississippi,  a  thoroughfare  from  Lake 
Michigan  to  the  Gulf;  and  the  other  by  French  Creek 
and  the  Allegheny,  broken  only  by  one  easy  portage, 
affording  a  perfect  means  of  access  to  the  Ohio,  a  river 
which  has  always  operated  as  the  line  of  cleavage  be- 
tween our  northern  and  southern  States.  The  French 
starting  from  Quebec  floated  from  Lake  Erie  down 
the  Allegheny  to  Pittsburgh,  the  English  ascended 
the  Potomac  to  Cumberland,  and  thence,  following 
the  most  practicable  watercourses,  advanced  on  the 
French  position  at  the  junction  of  the  Allegheny  and 
the  Monongahela.  There  Washington  met  and  fought 
them  in  1754,  and  ever  after  Washington  maintained 
that  the  only  method  by  which  a  stable  union  among 
the  colonies  could  be  secured  was  by  a  main  trunk 
system  of  transportation  along  the  line  of  the  Ohio  and 
the  Potomac.  This  was  to  be  his  canal  which  should 
bind  north  and  south,  east  and  west,  together  by  a  com- 
mon interest,  and  which  should  carry  the  produce  of 
the  west,  north,  and  south,  to  the  Atlantic  coast,  where 
it  should  be  discharged  at  the  head  of  deep-water  navi- 
gation, and  which  should  thus  stimulate  industry  ad- 
jacent to  the  spot  he  chose  for  the  Federal  City,  or,  in 
our  language,  for  the  City  of  Washington.  Thus  the 
capital  of  the  United  States  was  to  become  the  capital 


PREFACE.  145 

of  a  true  nation,  not  as  a  political  compromise,  but 
because  it  lay  at  the  central  point  of  a  community  made 
cohesive  by  a  social  circulation  which  should  build  it 
up,  in  his  own  words,  into  a  capital,  or  national  heart,  if 
not  "as  large  as  London,  yet  of  a  magnitude  inferior 
to  few  others  in  Europe."  l  Maryland  and  Virginia 
abounded,  as  Washington  well  knew,  in  coal  and  iron. 
His  canal  passing  through  this  region  would  stimulate 
industry,  and  these  States  would  thus  become  the  focus 
of  exchanges.  Manufacturing  is  incompatible  with 
slavery,  hence  slavery  would  gradually  and  peacefully 
disappear,  and  the  extremities  of  the  Union  would  be 
drawn  together  at  what  he  described  as  "the  great 
emporium  of  the  United  States."  To  crown  all,  a 
national  university  was  to  make  this  emporium  power- 
ful in  collective  thought. 

Doubtless  Grenville  and  Townshend  had  not  con- 
sidered the  American  problem  as  maturely  as  had 
Washington,  but  nevertheless,  most  well-informed 
persons  now  agree  that  Englishmen  in  1763  were  quite 
alive  to  the  advantages  which  would  accrue  to  Great 
Britain,  by  holding  in  absolute  control  a  rich  but  inco- 
herent body  of  colonies  whose  administrative  centre 
lay  in  England,  and  were  as  anxious  that  London  should 
serve  as  the  heart  of  America  as  Washington  was  that 
America  should  have  its  heart  on  the  Potomac. 

Accordingly,  England  attempted  to  isolate  Massa- 
chusetts and  pressed  an  attack  on  her  with  energy,  be- 
fore the  whole  thirteen  colonies  should  be  able  to  draw 

1  Washington  to  Mrs.  Fairfax,  16  May,  1798;  Sparks,  xi,  233. 


146  PREFACE. 

to  a  unity.  On  the  other  hand,  Washington,  and  most 
sensible  Americans,  resisted  this  attack  as  resolutely 
as  might  be  under  such  disadvantages,  not  wishing  for 
independence,  but  hoping  for  some  compromise  like 
that  which  Great  Britain  has  since  effected  with  her 
remaining  colonies.  The  situation,  however,  admitted 
of  no  peaceful  adjustment,  chiefly  because  the  imbecil- 
ity of  American  administration  induced  by  her  inca- 
pacity for  collective  thought,  was  so  manifest,  that 
Englishmen  could  not  believe  that  such  a  society  could 
wage  a  successful  war.  Nor  could  America  have  done 
so  alone.  She  owed  her  ultimate  victory  altogether  to 
Washington  and  France. 

It  would  occupy  too  much  space  for  me  to  undertake 
to  analyze,  even  superficially,  the  process  by  which, 
after  the  Seven  Years'  War,  competition  between  Amer- 
ica and  England  reached  an  intensity  which  kindled 
the  American  Revolution,  but,  shortly  stated,  the 
economic  tension  arose  thus:  As  England  was  then  or- 
ganized, the  estates  of  the  English  landlords  had  to 
pay  two  rents,  one  to  the  landlord  himself,  the  other  to 
the  farmer  who  leased  his  land,  and  this  it  could  not 
do  were  it  brought  into  direct  competition  with  equally 
good  land  which  paid  but  one  profit,  and  which  was  not 
burdened  by  an  excessive  cost  of  transportation  in 
reaching  its  market.  As  freights  between  England 
and  America  fell  because  of  improved  shipping  and 
the  greater  safety  of  the  seas,  England  had  to  have 
protection  for  her  food  and  she  proposed  to  get  it  thus : 
If  competing  Continental  exports  could  be  excluded 


PREFACE.  147 

from  America,  and,  at  the  same  time,  Americans  could 
be  prevented  from  manufacturing  for  themselves,  the 
colonists  might  be  constrained  to  take  what  they 
needed  from  England,  at  prices  which  would  enable 
labor  to  buy  food  at  a  rate  which  would  yield  the 
double  profit,  and  thus  America  could  be  made  to  pay 
the  cost  of  supporting  the  landlords.  As  Cobden 
afterward  observed,  the  fortunes  of  England  have 
turned  on  American  competition.  A  part  of  these 
fortunes  were  represented  by  the  Parliamentary  bor- 
oughs which  the  landlords  owned  and  which  were  con- 
fiscated by  the  Reform  Bill,  and  these  boroughs  were 
held  by  Lord  Eldon  to  be  incorporeal  hereditaments: 
as  truly  a  part  of  the  private  property  of  the  gentry 
who  owned  them  as  church  advowsons,  or  the  like. 
And  the  gentry  held  to  their  law-making  power  which 
gave  them  such  a  privilege  with  a  tenacity  which  pre- 
cipitated two  wars  before  they  yielded;  but  this  was 
naught  compared  to  the  social  convulsion  which  rent 
France,  when  a  population  which  had  been  for  centuries 
restrained  from  free  domestic  movement,  burst  its 
bonds  and  insisted  on  levelling  the  barriers  which  had 
immobilized  it. 

The  story  of  the  French  Revolution  is  too  familiar 
to  need  recapitulation  here:  indeed,  I  have  already  dealt 
with  it  in  my  Social  Revolutions;  but  the  effects  of  that 
convulsion  are  only  now  beginning  to  appear,  and  these 
effects,  without  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  have  been  in 
their  ultimate  development  the  occasion  of  that  great 
war  whose  conclusion  we  still  await. 


148  PREFACE. 

France,  in  1792,  having  passed  into  a  revolution 
which  threatened  the  vested  interests  of  Prussia,  was 
attacked  by  Prussia,  who  was  defeated  at  Valmy. 
Presently,  France  retaliated,  under  Napoleon,  in- 
vaded Prussia,  crushed  her  army  at  Jena,  in  1807,  dis- 
membered the  kingdom  and  imposed  on  her  many 
hardships.  To  obtain  their  freedom  the  Prussians 
found  it  needful  to  reorganize  their  social  system  from 
top  to  bottom,  for  this  social  system  had  descended 
from  Frederic  William,  the  Great  Elector  of  Branden- 
burg (1640-1688),  and  from  Frederic  the  Great  (1740- 
1786),  and  was  effete  and  incapable  of  meeting  the 
French  onset,  which  amounted,  in  substance,  to  a 
quickened  competition.  Accordingly,  the  new  Prus- 
sian constitution,  conceived  by  Stein,  put  the  com- 
munity upon  a  relatively  democratic  and  highly  devel- 
oped educational  basis.  By  the  Emancipating  Edict 
of  1807,  the  peasantry  came  into  possession  of  their 
land,  while,  chiefly  through  the  impulsion  of  Scharn- 
horst,  who  was  the  first  chief  of  staff  of  the  modern  army, 
the  country  adopted  universal  military  service,  which 
proved  to  be  popular  throughout  all  ranks.  Previous 
to  Scharnhorst,  under  Frederic  the  Great,  the  quali- 
fication of  an  officer  had  been  birth.  Scharnhorst  de- 
fined it  as  education,  gallantry,  and  intelligence.  Simi- 
larly, Gneisenau's  conception  of  a  possible  Prussian 
supremacy  lay  in  its  army,  its  science,  and  its  adminis- 
tration. But  the  civil  service  was  intended  to  incar- 
nate science,  and  was  the  product  of  the  modernized 
university,  exemplified  in  the  University  of  Berlin  or- 


PREFACE.  149 

ganized  by  William  von  Humboldt.  Herein  lay  the 
initial  advantage  which  Germany  gained  over  Eng- 
land, an  advantage  which  she  long  maintained.  And 
the  advantage  lay  in  this:  Germany  conceived  a  sys- 
tem of  technical  education  matured  and  put  in  opera- 
tion by  the  State.  Hence,  so  far  as  in  human  affairs 
such  things  are  possible,  the  intelligence  of  Germans 
was  liberated  from  the  incubus  of  vested  interests,  who 
always  seek  to  use  education  to  advance  themselves. 
It  was  so  in  England.  The  English  entrusted  educa- 
tion to  the  Church,  and  the  Church  was,  by  the  neces- 
sity of  its  being,  reactionary  and  hostile  to  science, 
whereas  the  army,  in  the  main,  was  treated  in  England 
as  a  social  function,  and  the  officers,  speaking  gener- 
ally, were  not  technically  specially  educated  at  all. 
Hence,  in  foreign  countries,  but  especially  in  Ger- 
many which  was  destined  to  be  ultimately  England's 
great  competitor,  England  laid  herself  open  to  rather 
more  than  a  suspicion  of  weakness,  and  indeed,  when 
it  came  to  a  test,  England  found  herself  standing,  for 
several  years  of  war,  at  a  considerable  disadvantage 
because  of  the  lack  of  education  in  those  departments 
wherein  Germany  had,  by  the  attack  of  France,  been 
forced  to  make  herself  proficient.  This  any  one  may 
see  for  himself  by  reading  the  addresses  of  Fichte  to  the 
German  nation,  delivered  in  1807  and  1808,  when  Ber- 
lin was  still  occupied  by  the  French.  In  fine,  it  was 
with  Prussia  a  question  of  competition,  brought  to  its 
ultimate  tension  by  war.  Prussia  had  no  alternative 
as  a  conquered  land  but  to  radically  accelerate  her 


150  PREFACE, 

momentum,  or  perish.  And  so,  at  the  present  day,  it 
may  not  improbably  be  with  us.  Competition  must 
grow  intenser. 

With  England  the  situation  in  1800  was  very  differ- 
ent. It  was  less  strenuous.  Nothing  is  more  notable 
in  England  than  to  observe  how,  after  the  Industrial 
Revolution  began,  there  was  practically  no  means  by 
which  a  poor  man  could  get  an  education,  save  by  edu- 
cating himself.  For  instance,  in  February  1815,  four 
months  before  Waterloo,  George  Stephenson  took  out 
a  patent  for  the  locomotive  engine  which  was  to  rev- 
olutionize the  world.  But  George  Stephenson  was  a 
common  laborer  in  the  mines,  who  had  no  state  in- 
struction available,  nor  had  he  even  any  private  insti- 
tution at  hand  in  which  the  workmen  whom  he  em- 
ployed in  practical  construction  could  be  taught.  He 
and  his  son  Robert,  had  to  organize  instruction  for 
themselves  and  their  employees  independently.  So 
it  was  even  with  a  man  like  Faraday,  who  began  life 
as  an  errand  boy,  and  later  on  who  actually  went 
abroad  as  a  sort  of  valet  to  Sir  Humphry  Davy. 
Davy  himself  was  a  self-made  man.  In  short,  Eng- 
land, as  a  community,  did  little  or  nothing  by  educa- 
tion for  those  who  had  no  means,  and  but  little  to  draw 
any  one  toward  science.  It  was  at  this  precise  moment 
that  Germany  was  cast  into  the  furnace  of  modern 
competition  with  England,  who  had,  because  of  a 
series  of  causes,  chiefly  geographical,  topographical, 
and  mineralogical,  about  a  century  the  start  of  her. 
Against  this  advantage  Germany  had  to  rely  exclusively 


PREFACE.  151 

upon  civil  and  military  education.  At  first  this  com- 
petition by  Germany  took  a  military  complexion,  and 
very  rapidly  wrought  the  complete  consolidation  of 
Germany  by  the  Austrian  and  the  French  wars. 
But  this  phase  presently  passed,  and  after  the  French 
campaign  of  1870  the  purely  economic  aspect  of  the 
situation  developed  more  strenuously  still,  so  much  so 
that  intelligent  observers,  among  whom  Lord  Rob- 
erts was  conspicuous,  perceived  quite  early  in  the 
present  century  that  the  heat  generated  in  the  con- 
flict must,  probably,  soon  engender  war.  Nor  could 
it  either  theoretically  or  practically  have  been  other- 
wise, for  the  relations  between  the  two  countries  had 
reached  a  point  where  they  generated  a  friction  which 
caused  incandescence  automatically.  And,  moreover, 
the  inflammable  material  fit  for  combustion  was,  es- 
pecially in  Germany,  present  in  quantity.  From  the 
time  of  Fichte  and  Scharnhorst  downward  to  the  end 
of  the  century,  the  whole  nation  had  learned,  as  a  sort 
of  gospel,  that  the  German  education  produced  a  most 
superior  engine  of  economic  competition,  whereas  the 
slack  education  and  frivolous  amusements  of  English 
civil  and  military  life  alike,  had  gradually  created  a 
society  apt  to  crumble.  And  it  is  only  needful  for 
any  person  who  has  the  curiosity,  to  glance  at  the  light 
literature  of  the  Victorian  age,  which  deals  with  the 
army,  to  see  how  dominant  a  part  such  an  amusement 
as  hunting  played  in  the  life  of  the  younger  officers, 
especially  in  the  fashionable  regiments,  to  be  impressed 
with  the  soundness  of  much  of  this  German  criticism. 


152  PREFACE. 

Assuming,  then,  for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  these 
historical  premises  are  sound,  I  proceed  to  consider  how 
they  bear  on  our  prospective  civilization. 

This  is  eminently  a  scientific  age,  and  yet  the  scien- 
tific mind,  as  it  is  now  produced  among  us,  is  not  with- 
out tendencies  calculated  to  cause  uneasiness  to  those 
a  little  conversant  with  history  or  philosophy.  For 
whereas  no  one  in  these  days  would  dream  of  utilizing 
prayer,  as  did  Moses  or  Saint  Hugh,  as  a  mechanical 
energy,  nevertheless  the  search  for  a  universal  prime 
motor  goes  on  unabated,  and  yet  it  accomplishes 
nothing  to  the  purpose.  On  the  contrary,  the  effect 
is  one  which  could  neither  be  expected  nor  desired. 
Instead  of  being  an  aid  to  social  coordination,  it  stimu- 
lates disintegration  to  a  high  degree  as  the  war  has 
shown.  It  has  stimulated  disintegration  in  two  ways. 
First,  it  has  enormously  quickened  physical  movement, 
which  has  already  been  discussed,  and  secondly,  it  has 
stimulated  the  rapidity  with  which  thought  is  diffused. 
The  average  human  being  can  only  absorb  and  assim- 
ilate safely  new  forms  of  thought  when  given  enough 
time  for  digestion,  as  if  he  were  assimilating  food.  If 
he  be  plied  with  new  thought  too  rapidly  he  fails  to 
digest.  He  has  a  surfeit,  serious  in  proportion  to  its 
enormity.  That  is  to  say,  his  power  of  drawing  cor- 
rect conclusions  from  the  premises  submitted  to  him 
fails,  and  we  have  all  sorts  of  crude  experiments  in  so- 
ciology attempted,  which  end  in  that  form  of  chaos 
which  we  call  a  violent  revolution.  The  ordinary  re- 
sult is  infinite  waste  fomented  by  fallacious  hopes;  in 


PREFACE.  153 

a  word,  financial  disaster,  supplemented  usually  by 
loss  of  life.  The  experience  is  an  old  one,  and  the  re- 
sult is  almost  invariable. 

For  example,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  men  like 
Saint  Hugh  and  Peter  the  Venerable,  and,  most  of  all, 
Saint 'Francis,  possessed  by  dreams  of  attaining  to  per- 
fection, by  leading  lives  of  inimitable  purity,  self-de- 
votion, and  asceticism,  inspired  the  community  about 
them  with  the  conviction  that  they  could  work  miracles. 
They  thereby,  as  a  reward,  drew  to  the  Church  they 
served  what  amounted  to  being,  considering  the  age 
they  lived  in,  boundless  wealth.  But  the  effect  of  this 
economic  phenomenon  was  far  from  what  they  had 
hoped  or  expected.  Instead  of  raising  the  moral 
standard  of  men  to  a  point  where  all  the  world  would 
be  improved,  they  so  debased  the  hierarchy,  by  making 
money  the  standard  of  ambition  within  it,  that,  as  a 
whole,  the  priesthood  accepted,  without  any  effective 
protest,  the  fires  of  the  Council  of  Constance  which 
consumed  Huss,  and  the  abominations  of  the  Borgias 
at  Rome.  Perfectly  logically,  as  a  corollary  to  this 
orgy  of  crime  and  bestiality,  the  wars  of  the  Refor- 
mation swept  away  many,  many  thousands  of  human 
beings,  wasted  half  of  Europe,  and  only  served  to 
demonstrate  the  futility  of  ideals. 

And  so  it  was  with  the  Puritans,  who  were  them- 
selves the  children  of  the  revolt  against  social  corrup- 
tion. They  fondly  believed  that  a  new  era  was  to  be 
ushered  in  by  the  rule  of  the  Cromwellian  saints. 
What  the  Cromwellian  saints  did  in  truth  usher  in,  was 


154  PREFACE. 

the  carnival  of  debauchery  of  Charles  II,  in  its  turn 
to  be  succeeded  by  the  capitalistic  competitive  age 
which  we  have  known,  and  which  has  abutted  in  the 
recent  war.  ^ 

Man  can  never  hope  to  change  his  physical  necessi- 
ties, and  therefore  his  moral  nature  must  always  re- 
main the  same  in  essence,  if  not  in  form.  As  Washing- 
ton truly  said,  "The  motives  which  predominate  most 
in  human  affairs  are  self-love  and  self-interest,"  and 
"nothing  binds  one  country  or  one  state  to  another 
but  interest." 

If,  then,  it  be  true,  that  man  is  an  automatic  animal 
moving  always  along  the  paths  of  least  resistance  to- 
ward predetermined  ends,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  useful  to 
us  in  the  present  emergency  to  mark,  as  distinctly  as  we 
can,  the  causes  which  impelled  Germany,  at  a  certain 
point  in  her  career,  to  choose  the  paths  which  led  to  her 
destruction  rather  than  those  which,  at  the  first  blush, 
promised  as  well,  and  which  seemed  to  be  equally  as 
easy  and  alluring.  And  we  may  possibly,  by  this  proc- 
ess, expose  certain  phenomena  which  may  profit  us, 
since  such  an  examination  may  help  us  to  estimate 
what  avenues  are  like  to  prove  ultimately  the  least 
resistant. 

Throughout  the  Middle  Ages  North  Germany,  which 
is  the  region  whereof  Berlin  is  the  capital,  enjoyed 
relatively  little  prosperity,  because  Brandenburg,  for 
example,  lay  beyond  the  zone  of  those  main  trade  routes 
which,  before  the  advent  of  railways,  served  as  the 
arteries  of  the  eastern  trade.  Not  until  after  the  open- 


PREFACE.  155 

ing  of  the  Industrial  Revolution  in  England,  did  that 
condition  alter.  Nor  even  then  did  a  change  come 
rapidly  because  of  the  inertia  of  the  Russian  people. 
Nevertheless,  as  the  Russian  railway  system  developed, 
Berlin  one  day  found  herself  standing,  as  it  were,  at 
the  apex  of  a  vast  triangle  whose  boundaries  are, 
roughly,  indicated  by  the  position  of  Berlin  itself, 
Petersburg,  Warsaw,  Moscow,  Kiev,  and  the  Ukraine. 
Beyond  Berlin  the  stream  of  traffic  flowed  to  Hamburg 
and  thence  found  vent  in  America,  as  a  terminus. 
Great  Britain,  more  especially,  demanded  food,  and 
food  passed  by  sea  from  Odessa.  Hence  Russia 
served  as  a  natural  base  for  Germany,  taking  German 
manufactures  and  offering  to  Germany  a  reservoir  ca- 
pable of  absorbing  her  redundant  population.  Thus 
it  had  long  been  obvious  that  intimate  relations  with 
Russia  were  of  prime  importance  to  Germany  since  all 
the  world  could  perceive  that  the  monied  interests  of 
Russia  must  more  and  more  fall  into  German  hands, 
because  of  the  intellectual  limitations  of  the  Russians. 
Also  pacification  to  the  eastward  always  was  an  in- 
tegral part  of  Bismarck's  policy.  Notwithstanding 
which  other  influences  conflicted  with,  and  ultimately 
overbalanced,  this  eastern  trend  in  Germany. 

For  many  thousand  years  before  written  history 
began,  the  economic  capital  of  the  world,  the  seat  for 
the  time  being  of  opulence  and  of  splendor,  and  at  once 
the  admiration  and  the  envy  of  less  favored  rivals,  has 
been  a  certain  ambulatory  spot  upon  the  earth's  surface, 
at  a  point  where  the  lines  of  trade  from  east  to  west 


156  PREFACE. 

have  converged.  And  always  the  marked  idiosyn- 
crasy of  this  spot  has  been  its  unrest.  It  has  con- 
stantly oscillated  from  east  to  west  according  as  the 
fortunes  of  war  have  prevailed,  or  as  the  march  of  ap- 
plied science  has  made  one  or  another  route  of  trans- 
portation cheaper  or  more  defensible. 

Thus  Babylon  was  conquered  and  robbed  by  Rome, 
and  Rome,  after  a  long  heyday  of  prosperity,  yielded 
to  Constantinople,  while  Constantinople  lost  her  su- 
premacy to  Venice,  Genoa,  and  North  Italy,  follow- 
ing the  sack  of  Constantinople  by  the  Venetians  in 
1202  A.D.  The  Fairs  of  Champaign  in  France,  and 
the  cities  of  the  Rhine  and  Antwerp  were  the  glory  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  but  these  great  markets  faded  when 
the  discovery  of  the  long  sea  voyage  to  India  threw  the 
route  by  the  Red  Sea  and  Cairo  into  eccentricity,  and 
caused  Spain  and  Portugal  to  bloom.  Spain's  pros- 
perity did  not,  however,  last  long.  England  used 
war  during  the  sixteenth  century  as  an  economic 
weapon,  pretty  easily  conquering.  And  since  the 
opening  of  .the  Industrial  Revolution,  at  least,  London, 
with  the  exception  of  the  few  years  when  England  suf- 
fered from  the  American  revolt  of  1776,  has  assumed 
steadily  more  the  aspect  of  the  great  international 
centre  of  exchanges,  until  with  Waterloo  her  suprem- 
acy remained  unchallenged.  It  was  this  brilliant 
achievement  of  London,  won  chiefly  by  arms,  which 
more  than  any  other  cause  impelled  Germany  to  try 
her  fortunes  by  war  rather  than  by  the  methods  of 
peace. 


PREFACE.  157 

Nor  was  the  German  calculation  of  chances  unrea- 
sonable or  unwarranted.  For  upwards  of  two  centu- 
ries Germany  had  found  war  the  most  profitable  of  all 
her  economic  ventures;  especially  had  she  found  the 
French  war  of  1870  a  most  lucrative  speculation.  And 
she  felt  unbounded  confidence  that  she  could  win  as 
easy  a  triumph  with  her  army,  over  the  French,  in  the 
twentieth  as  in  the  nineteenth  century.  But,  could 
she  penetrate  to  Paris  and  at  the  same  time  occupy  the 
littoral  of  the  Channel  and  Antwerp,  she  was  persuaded 
that  she  could  do  to  the  commerce  of  England  what 
England  had  once  done  to  the  commerce  of  Spain,  and 
that  Hamburg  and  Berlin  would  supplant  London. 
And  this  calculation  might  have  proved  sound  had  it 
not  been  for  her  oversight  in  ignoring  one  essential 
factor  in  the  problem.  Ever  since  North  America  was 
colonized  by  the  English,  that  portion  of  the  continent 
which  is  now  comprised  by  the  Republic  of  the  United 
States,  had  formed  a  part  of  the  British  economic  sys- 
tem, even  when  the  two  fragments  of  that  system  were 
competing  in  war,  as  has  occurred  more  than  once. 
And  as  America  has  waxed  great  and  rich  these  rela- 
tions have  grown  closer,  until  of  recent  years  it  has  be- 
come hard  to  determine  whether  the  centre  of  gravity 
of  this  vast  capitalistic  mass  lay  to  the  east  or  to  the 
west  of  the  Atlantic.  One  fact,  however,  from  before 
the  outset  of  this  war  had  been  manifest,  and  that  was 
that  the  currents  of  movement  flowed  with  more  power 
from  America  to  England  than  from  America  to  Ger- 
many. And  this  had  from  before  the  outbreak  of  hos- 


158  PREFACE. 

tilities  affected  the  relations  of  the  parties.  Should 
Germany  prevail  hi  her  contest  with  England,  the  result 
would  certainly  be  to  draw  the  centre  of  exchanges  to 
the  eastward,  and  thereby  to  throw  the  United  States, 
more  or  less,  into  eccentricity;  but  were  England  to  pre- 
vail the  United  States  would  tend  to  become  the  centre 
toward  which  all  else  would  gravitate.  Hence,  per- 
fectly automatically,  from  a  time  as  long  ago  as  the 
Spanish  War,  the  balance,  as  indicated  by  the  weight 
of  the  United  States,  hung  unevenly  as  between  Ger- 
many and  England,  Germany  manifesting  something 
approaching  to  repulsion  toward  the  attraction  of  the 
United  States  while  Great  Britain  manifested  favor. 
And  from  subsequent  evidence,  this  phenomenon 
would  seem  to  have  been  thus  early  developed,  because 
the  economic  centre  of  gravity  of  our  modern  civiliza- 
tion had  already  traversed  the  Atlantic,  and  by  so  doing 
had  decided  the  fortunes  of  Germany  in  advance,  in 
the  greater  struggle  about  to  come.  Consider  atten- 
tively what  has  happened.  In  April,  1917,  when  the 
United  States  entered  the  conflict,  Germany,  though  it 
had  suffered  severely  in  loss  of  men,  was  by  no  means 
exhausted.  On  the  contrary,  many  months  subse- 
quently she  began  her  final  offensive,  which  she  pushed 
so  vigorously  that  she  penetrated  to  within  some  sixty 
miles  of  Paris.  But  there,  at  Chdteau  Thierry,  on  the 
Marne,  she  first  felt  the  weight  of  the  economic  shift. 
She  suddenly  encountered  a  division  of  American 
troops  advancing  to  oppose  her.  Otherwise  the  road 
to  Paris  lay  apparently  open.  The  American  troops 


PREFACE.  159 

were  raw  levies  whom  the  Germans  pretended  to  de- 
spise. And  yet,  almost  without  making  a  serious  effort 
at  prolonged  attack,  the  Germans  began  their  retreat, 
which  only  ended  with  their  collapse  and  the  fall  of 
the  empire. 

A  similar  phenomenon  occurred  once  before  in  Ger- 
man history,  and  it  is  not  an  uncommon  incident  in 
human  experience  when  nature  has  already  made,  or 
is  on  the  brink  of  making,  a  change  in  the  seat  of  the 
economic  centre  of  the  world.  In  the  same  way,  when 
Constantine  won  the  battle  of  the  Milvian  Bridge,  with 
his  men  fighting  under  the  standard  of  the  Labarum, 
it  was  subsequently  found  that  the  economic  capital 
of  civilization  had  silently  migrated  from  the  Tiber  to 
the  Bosphorus,  where  Constantine  seated  himself  at 
Constantinople,  which  was  destined  to  be  the  new 
capital  of  the  world  for  about  eight  hundred  years. 
So  in  1792,  when  the  Prussians  and  the  French  refu- 
gees together  invaded  France,  they  never  doubted  for 
an  instant  that  they  should  easily  disperse  the  mob, 
as  they  were  pleased  to  call  it,  of  Kellermann's  "vaga- 
bonds, cobblers,  and  tailors."  Nevertheless  the  Ger- 
mans recoiled  on  the  slope  of  Valmy  from  before  the 
republican  army,  almost  without  striking  a  blow,  nor 
could  they  be  brought  again  to  the  attack,  although  the 
French  royalists  implored  to  be  allowed  to  storm  the 
hill  alone,  provided  they  could  be  assured  of  support. 
Then  the  retreat  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  began,  and 
this  retreat  was  the  prelude  to  the  Napoleonic  empire, 
to  Austerlitz,  to  Jena,  to  the  dismemberment  and  to 


160  PREFACE. 

the  reorganization  of  Prussia  and  to  the  evolution  of 
modern  Germany:  in  short,  to  the  conversion  of  the 
remnants  of  mediaeval  civilization  into  the  capitalistic, 
industrial,  competitive  society  which  we  have  known. 
And  all  this  because  of  the  accelerated  movement 
caused  by  science. 

If  it  be,  indeed,  a  fact  that  the  victory  of  Chateau 
Thierry  and  the  subsequent  retreat  of  the  German 
army  together  with  the  collapse  of  the  German  Em- 
pire indicate,  as  there  is  abundant  reason  to  suppose 
that  they  may,  a  shift  in  the  world's  social  equilibrium, 
equivalent  to  the  shift  in  Europe  presaged  by  Valmy, 
or  to  that  which  substituted  Constantinople  for  Rome 
and  which  was  marked  by  the  Milvian  Bridge,  it  fol- 
lows that  we  must  prepare  ourselves  for  changes  pos- 
sibly greater  than  our  world  has  seen  since  it  marched 
to  Jerusalem  under  Godfrey  de  Bouillon.  And  the 
tendency  of  those  changes  is  not  so  very  difficult,  per- 
haps, roughly  to  estimate,  always  premising  that  they 
are  hardly  compatible  with  undue  optimism.  Sup- 
posing, for  example,  we  consider,  in  certain  of  their 
simpler  aspects,  some  of  the  relations  of  Great  Britain 
toward  ourselves,  since  Great  Britain  is  not  only  our 
most  important  friend,  assuming  that  she  remain  a 
friend,  but  our  most  formidable  competitor,  should 
competition  strain  our  friendship.  Also  Great  Britain 
has  the  social  system  nearest  akin  to  our  own,  and  most 
likely  to  be  influenced  by  the  same  so-called  demo- 
cratic tendencies.  For  upwards  of  a  hundred  years 
Great  Britain  has  been,  and  she  still  is,  absolutely  de- 


PREFACE.  161 

pendent  on  her  maritime  supremacy  for  life.  It  was  on 
that  issue  she  fought  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  when 
she  prevailed  at  Trafalgar  and  Waterloo  she  assumed 
economic  supremacy,  but  only  on  the  condition  that 
she  should  always  be  ready  and  willing  to  defend  it, 
for  it  is  only  on  that  condition  that  economic  suprem- 
acy can  be  maintained.  War  is  the  most  potent  en- 
gine of  economic  competition.  Constantinople  and 
Antwerp  survived  and  flourished  on  the  same  identical 
conditions  long  before  the  day  of  London.  She  must 
keep  her  avenues  of  communication  with  all  the  world 
open,  and  guard  them  against  possible  attack.  So 
long  as  America  competed  actively  with  England  on 
the  sea,  even  for  her  own  trade,  her  relations  with 
Great  Britain  were  troubled.  The  irritation  of  the 
colonies  with  the  restrictions  which  England  put  upon 
their  commerce  materially  contributed  to  foment  the 
revolution,  as  abundantly  appears  in  the  famous  case 
of  John  Hancock's  sloop  Liberty,  which  was  seized  for 
smuggling.  So  in  the  War  of  1812,  England  could  not 
endure  the  United  States  as  a  competitor  in  her  con- 
test with  France.  She  must  be  an  ally,  or,  in  other 
words,  she  must  function  as  a  component  part  of  the 
British  economic  system,  or  she  must  be  crushed.  The 
crisis  came  with  the  attack  of  the  Leopard  on  the 
Chesapeake  in  1807,  after  which  the  possibility  of  main- 
taining peace,  under  such  a  pressure,  appeared,  in  its 
true  light,  as  a  phantasm.  After  the  war,  with  more 
or  less  constant  friction,  the  same  conditions  con- 
tinued until  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion,  and  then 


162  PREFACE. 

Great  Britain  manifested  her  true  animus  as  a  com- 
petitor. She  waged  an  unacknowledged  campaign 
against  the  commerce  of  the  United  States,  building, 
equipping,  arming,  manning,  and  succoring  a  navy  for 
the  South,  which  operated  none  the  less  effectively 
because  its  action  was  officially  repudiated.  And  in 
this  secret  warfare  England  prevailed,  since  when  the 
legislation  of  the  United  States  has  made  American 
competition  with  England  on  the  sea  impossible. 
Wherefore  we  have  had  peace  with  England.  We  have 
supplied  Great  Britain  with  food  and  raw  materials, 
abandoning  to  England  the  carrying  trade  and  an  un- 
disputed naval  supremacy.  Consequently  Great  Brit- 
ain feels  secure  and  responds  to  the  full  force  of  that 
economic  attraction  which  makes  America  naturally, 
a  component  part  of  the  British  economic  system. 
But  let  American  pretensions  once  again  revive  to  the 
point  of  causing  her  to  attempt  seriously  to  develop 
her  sea  power  as  of  yore,  and  the  same  friction  would 
also  revive  which  could  hardly,  were  it  pushed  to  its 
legitimate  end,  eventuate  otherwise  than  in  the  ulti- 
mate form  of  all  economic  competition. 

If  such  a  supposition  seems  now  to  be  fanciful,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  reflect  a  moment  on  the  rapidity 
with  which  national  relations  vary  under  competition, 
to  be  assured  that  it  is  real.  As  Washington  said, 
the  only  force  which  binds  one  nation  to  another  is 
interest.  The  rise  of  Germany,  which  first  created 
jealousy  in  England,  began  with  the  attack  on  Den- 
mark in  1864.  Then  Russia  was  the  power  which  the 


PREFACE.  163 

British  most  feared  and  with  whom  they  were  on  the 
worst  of  terms.  About  that  period  nothing  would 
have  seemed  more  improbable  than  that  these  relations 
would  be  reversed,  and  that  Russia  and  England  would 
jointly,  within  a  generation,  wage  fierce  war  on  Ger- 
many. We  are  very  close  to  England  now,  but  we  may 
be  certain  that,  were  we  to  press,  as  Germany  pressed, 
on  British  maritime  and  industrial  supremacy,  we 
should  be  hated  too.  It  is  vain  to  disguise  the  fact 
that  British  fortunes  in  the  past  have  hinged  on  Amer- 
ican competition,  and  that  the  wisest  and  most  saga- 
cious Englishmen  have  been  those  who  have  been  most 
alive  to  the  fact.  Richard  Cobden,  for  example,  was 
one  of  the  most  liberal  as  he  was  one  of  the  most  emi- 
nent of  British  economists  and  statesmen  of  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  He  was  a  democrat  by 
birth  and  education,  and  a  Quaker  by  religion.  In 
1835,  just  before  he  entered  public  life,  Cobden  visited 
the  United  States  and  thus  recorded  his  impressions 
on  his  return: 

"America  is  once  more  the  theatre  upon  which 
nations  are  contending  for  mastery;  it  is  not,  how- 
ever, a  struggle  for  conquest,  in  which  the  victor 
will  acquire  territorial  dominion  —  the  fight  is  for 
commercial  supremacy,  and  will  be  won  by  the  cheap- 
est. ...  It  is  from  the  silent  and  peaceful  rivalry  of 
American  commerce,  the  growth  of  its  manufac- 
tures, its  rapid  progress  in  internal  improvements, 
...  it  is  from  these,  and  not  from  the  barbarous  policy 
or  the  impoverishing  armaments  of  Russia,  that  the 


164  PREFACE. 

grandeur  of  our  commercial  and  national  prosperity 
is  endangered."  1 

It  is  not,  however,  any  part  of  my  contention  that 
nature  should  push  her  love  of  competition  so  far  as 
necessarily  to  involve  us  in  war  with  Great  Britain, 
at  least  at  present,  for  nature  has  various  and  most 
unlooked-for  ways  of  arriving  at  her  ends,  since  men 
never  can  determine,  certainly  in  advance,  what 
avenue  will,  to  them,  prove  the  least  resistant.  They 
very  often  make  an  error,  as  did  the  Germans,  which 
they  can  only  correct  by  enduring  disaster,  defeat, 
and  infinite  suffering.  Nature  might  very  well,  for 
example,  prefer  that  consolidation  should  advance  yet 
another  step  before  a  reaction  toward  chaos  should 
begin. 

This  last  war  has,  apparently,  been  won  by  a  fusion 
of  two  economic  systems  which  together  hold  and  ad- 
minister a  preponderating  mass  of  fluid  capital,  and 
which  have  partially  pooled  their  resources  to  prevail. 
They  appear  almost  as  would  a  gigantic  lizard  which, 
having  been  severed  in  an  ancient  conflict,  was  now 
making  a  violent  but  only  half -conscious  effort  to  cause 
the  head  and  body  to  unite  with  the  tail,  so  that  the 
two  might  function  once  more  as  a  single  organism, 
governed  by  a  single  will.  Under  our  present  form  of 
capitalistic  life  there  would  seem  to  be  no  reason  why 
this  fluid  capital  should  not  fuse  and  by  its  energy 
furnish  the  motor  which  should  govern  the  world. 
Rome,  for  centuries,  was  governed  by  an  emperor,  who 
1  John  Morley,  The  Life  of  Richard  Cobden,  107,  108. 


PREFACE.  165 

represented  the  landed  class  of  Italy,  under  the  forms 
of  a  republic.  It  is  not  by  any  means  necessary  that 
a  plutocratic  mass  should  have  a  recognized  political 
head.  And  America  and  England,  like  two  enormous 
banking  houses,  might  in  effect  fuse  and  yet  go  on  as 
separate  institutions  with  nominally  separate  boards 
of  directors. 

But  it  is  inconceivable  that  even  such  an  expedient 
as  this,  however  successful  at  the  outset,  should  perma- 
nently solve  the  problem,  which  resolves  itself  once 
more  into  individual  competition.  It  is  not  imagin- 
able that  such  an  enormous  plutocratic  society  as  I 
have  supposed  could  conduct  its  complex  affairs  upon 
the  basis  of  the  average  intelligence.  As  in  Rome, 
a  civil  service  would  inevitably  be  organized  which 
would  contain  a  carefully  selected  body  of  ability.  We 
have  seen  such  a  process,  in  its  initial  stages,  in  the 
recent  war.  And  such  a  civil  service,  however  se- 
lected and  however  trained,  would,  to  succeed,  have 
to  be  composed  of  men  who  were  the  ablest  in  their 
calling,  the  best  educated,  and  the  fittest:  in  a  word, 
the  representatives  of  what  we  call  "the  big  business" 
of  the  country.  Such  as  they  might  handle  the  rail- 
roads, the  telegraph  lines,  the  food  supply,  the  question 
of  competitive  shipping,  and  finally  prices,  as  we  have 
seen  it  done,  but  only  on  condition  that  they  belonged 
to  the  fortunate  class  by  merit. 

But  supposing,  in  the  face  of  such  a  government,  the 
unfortunate  class  should  protest,  as  they  already  do 
protest  in  Russia,  in  Germany,  and  even  in  England  and 


166  PREFA  CE. 

here  at  home,  that  a  legal  system  which  sanctions  such 
a  civilization  is  iniquitous.  Here,  the  discontented  say, 
you  insist  on  a  certain  form  of  competition  being  carried 
to  its  limit.  That  is,  you  demand  intellectual  and 
peaceful  competition  for  which  I  am  unfit  both  by 
education,  training,  and  mental  ability.  I  am  there- 
fore excluded  from  those  walks  in  life  which  make  a 
man  a  freeman.  I  become  a  slave  to  capital.  I  must 
work,  or  fight,  or  starve  according  to  another  man's 
convenience,  caprice,  or,  in  fine,  according  to  his  will. 
I  could  be  no  worse  off  under  any  despot.  To  such  a 
system  I  will  not  submit.  But  I  can  at  least  fight. 
Put  me  on  a  competitive  equality  or  I  will  blow  your 
civilization  to  atoms.  To  such  an  argument  there  is 
no  logical  answer  possible  except  the  answer  which  all 
extreme  socialists  have  always  advanced.  The  for- 
tunate man  should  be  taxed  for  all  he  earns  above  the 
average  wage,  and  the  State  should  confiscate  his  accu- 
mulations at  death.  Then,  with  a  system  of  govern- 
ment education,  obligatory  on  all,  children  would  start 
equal  from  birth. 

Here  we  come  against  the  hereditary  instinct,  the 
creator  and  the  preserver  of  the  family:  the  instinct 
which  has  made  law  and  order  possible,  so  far  as  our 
ancestors  or  we  have  known  order,  as  far  back  as  the 
Ice  Age.  If  the  coming  world  must  strive  with  this 
question,  or  abandon  the  "democratic  ideal,"  the  fu- 
ture promises  to  be  stormy. 

But  even  assuming  that  this  problem  of  individual 
competition  be  overcome,  we  are  as  far  as  ever  from 


PREFACE.  167 

creating  a  system  of  moral  law  which  shall  avail  us, 
for  we  at  once  come  in  conflict  with  the  principle  of  ab- 
stract justice  which  demands  that  free  men  shall  be 
permitted  to  colonize  or  move  where  they  will.  But 
supposing  England  and  America  to  amalgamate;  they 
now  hold  or  assume  to  control  all  or  nearly  all  the 
vacant  regions  of  the  earth  which  are  suited  to  the 
white  man's  habitation.  And  the  white  man  cannot 
live  and  farm  his  land  in  competition  with  the  Asiatic; 
that  was  conclusively  proved  in  the  days  of  Rome. 

But  it  is  not  imaginable  that  Asiatics  will  submit  to 
this  discrimination  in  silence.  Nothing  can  probably 
constrain  them  to  resignation  but  force,  and  to  apply 
force  is  to  revert  to  the  old  argument  of  the  savage  or 
the  despot,  who  admits  that  he  knows  no  law  save  that 
of  the  stronger,  which  is  the  system,  however  much 
we  have  disguised  it  and,  in  short,  lied  about  it,  under 
which  we  have  lived  and  under  which  our  ancestors 
have  lived  ever  since  the  family  was  organized,  and 
under  which  it  is  probable  that  we  shall  continue  to 
live  as  long  as  any  remnant  of  civilization  shall  survive. 

Nevertheless,  it  seems  to  be  far  from  improbable 
that  the  system  of  industrial,  capitalistic  civilization, 
which  came  in,  in  substance,  with  the  "free  thought" 
of  the  Reformation,  is  nearing  an  end.  Very  prob- 
ably it  may  have  attained  to  its  ultimate  stages  and 
may  dissolve  presently  in  the  chaos  which,  since  the 
Reformation,  has  been  visibly  impending.  Democracy 
in  America  has  conspicuously  and  decisively  failed,  in 
the  collective  administration  of  the  common  public 


168  PREFACE. 

property.  Granting  thus  much,  it  becomes  simply  a 
question  of  relative  inefficiency,  or  degradation  of 
type,  culminating  in  the  exhaustion  of  resources  by 
waste;  unless  the  democratic  man  can  supernatu- 
rally  raise  himself  to  some  level  more  nearly  ap- 
proaching perfection  than  that  on  which  he  stands. 
For  it  has  become  self-evident  that  the  democrat 
cannot  change  himself  from  a  competitive  to  a  non- 
competitive  animal  by  talking  about  it,  or  by  pretend- 
ing to  be  already  or  to  be  about  to  become  other  than 
he  is,  —  the  victim  of  infinite  conflicting  forces. 

BROOKS  ADAMS. 

QUINCY,  July  20,  1919. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 


THE 

EMANCIPATION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS. 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

THE  mysteries  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church  had 
been  venerated  for  ages  when  Europe  burst  from  her 
mediaeval  torpor  into  the  splendor  of  the  Renaissance. 
Political  schemes  and  papal  abuses  may  have  precipi- 
tated the  inevitable  outbreak,  but  in  the  dawn  of  mod- 
ern thought  the  darkness  faded  amidst  which  mankind 
had  so  long  cowered  in  the  abject  terrors  of  supersti- 
tion. Already  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury many  of  the  ancient  dogmas  had  begun  to  awaken 
incredulity,  and  sceptics  learned  to  mock  at  that  claim 
to  infallibility  upon  which  the  priesthood  based  their 
right  to  command  the  blind  obedience  of  the  Chris- 
tian world.  Between  such  adversaries  compromise 
was  impossible ;  and  those  who  afterward  revolted 
against  the  authority  of  the  traditions  of  Rome  sought 
refuge  under  the  shelter  of  the  Bible,  which  they 
grew  to  reverence  with  a  passionate  devotion,  believ- 
ing it  to  have  been  not  only  directly  and  verbally  in- 
spired by  God,  but  the  only  channel  through  which  he 
had  made  known  his  will  to  men. 


172  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

Thus  the  movement  was  not  toward  new  doctrines ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  the  rejection  of  what  could  no 
longer  be  believed.  Calvin  was  no  less  orthodox  than 
St.  Augustine  in  what  he  accepted;  his  heresy  lay 
in  the  denial  of  enigmas  from  which  his  understand- 
ing recoiled.  The  mighty  convulsion  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, therefore,  was  but  the  supreme  effort  of  the  race 
to  tear  itself  from  the  toils  of  a  hierarchy  whose  life 
hung  upon  its  success  in  forcing  the  children  to  wor- 
ship the  myths  of  their  ancestral  religion. 

Three  hundred  years  after  Luther  nailed  his  theses 
to  the  church  door  the  logical  deduction  had  been 
drawn  from  his  great  act,  and  Christendom  had  been 
driven  to  admit  that  any  concession  of  the  right  to 
reason  upon  matters  of  faith  involved  the  recognition 
of  the  freedom  of  individual  thought.  But  though 
this  noble  principle  has  been  at  length  established, 
long  years  of  bloodshed  passed  before  the  victory  was 
won ;  and  from  the  outset  the  attitude  of  the  clergy 
formed  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  triumph  of  a  more 
liberal  civilization;  for  howsoever  bitterly  Catholic 
and  Protestant  divines  have  hated  and  persecuted 
each  other,  they  have  united  like  true  brethren  in 
their  hatred  and  their  persecution  of  heretics ;  for 
such  was  their  inexorable  destiny. 

Men  who  firmly  believe  that  salvation  lies  within 
their  creed  alone,  and  that  doubters  suffer  endless  tor- 
ments, never  can  be  tolerant.  They  feel  that  duty 
commands  them  to  defend  their  homes  against  a  deadly 
peril,  and  even  pity  for  the  sinner  urges  them  to  wring 


THE  COMMONWEALTH.  173 

from  him  a  recantation  before  it  is  too  late  ;  and  then, 
moreover,  dissent  must  lessen  the  power  and  influence 
of  a  hierarchy  and  may  endanger  its  very  existence ; 
therefore  the  priests  of  every  church  have  been  stimu- 
lated to  crush  out  schism  by  the  two  strongest  passions 
that  can  inflame  the  mind  —  by  bigotry  and  by  ambi- 
tion. 

In  England  the  Reformation  was  controlled  by 
statesmen,  whose  object  was  to  invest  the  crown  with 
ecclesiastical  power,  and  who  made  no  changes  except 
such  as  they  thought  necessary  for  their  purpose. 
They  repudiated  the  papal  supremacy,  and  adopted 
articles  of  religion  sufficiently  evangelical  in  form,  but 
they  retained  episcopacy,  the  liturgy,  and  the  sur- 
plice ;  the  cross  was  still  used  in  baptism,  the  people 
bowed  at  the  name  of  Jesus,  and  knelt  at  the  com- 
munion. Such  a  compromise  with  what  they  deemed 
idolatry  was  offensive  to  the  stricter  Protestants,  and 
so  early  as  1550  John  Hooper  refused  the  see  of 
Gloucester  because  he  would  not  wear  the  robes  of 
office ;  thus  almost  from  its  foundation  the  church  was 
divided  into  factions,  and  those  who  demanded  a  more 
radical  reform  were  nicknamed  Puritans.  As  time 
elapsed  large  numbers  who  could  no  longer  bring 
themselves  to  conform  withdrew  from  the  orthodox 
communion,  and  began  to  worship  by  themselves ; 
persecution  followed,  and  many  fled  to  Holland,  where 
they  formed  congregations  in  the  larger  towns,  the 
most  celebrated  of  them  being  that  of  John  Robinson 
at  Leyden,  which  afterward  founded  Plymouth.  But 


174  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

the  intellectual  ferment  was  universal,  and  the  same 
upheaval  that  was  rending  the  church  was  shaking 
the  foundations  of  the  state :  power  was  passing  into 
the  hands  of  the  people,  but  a  century  was  to  elapse 
before  the  relations  of  the  sovereign  to  the  House  of 
Commons  were  fully  adjusted.  During  this  interval 
the  Stuarts  reigned  and  three  of  the  four  kings  suf- 
fered exile  or  death  in  the  fierce  contest  for  mastery. 

The  fixed  determination  of  Charles  I.  was  to  es- 
tablish a  despotism  and  enforce  conformity  with  ritu- 
alism ;  and  the  result  was  the  Great  Rebellion. 

Among  the  statesmen  who  advised  him,  none  has 
met  with  such  scant  mercy  from  posterity  as  Laud, 
who  has  been  gibbeted  as  the  impersonification  of 
narrowness,  of  bigotry,  and  of  cruelty.  The  judgment 
is  unscientific,  for  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the 
humanity  or  wisdom  of  his  policy,  he  only  did  what 
all  have  done  who  have  attempted  to  impose  a  creed 
on  men. 

The  real  grievance  has  never  been  that  an  obser- 
vance has  been  required,  or  an  indulgence  refused,  but 
that  the  right  to  think  has  been  denied.  Provided  a 
boundary  be  fixed  within  which  the  reason  must  be 
chained,  the  line  drawn  by  Laud  is  as  reasonable  as 
that  of  Calvin  ;  Geneva  is  no  more  infallible  than 
Canterbury  or  Rome.  Comprehension  is  the  dream 
of  visionaries,  for  some  will  always  differ  from  any 
confession  of  faith,  however  broad ;  and  where  there 
are  dogmas  there  will  be  heretics  till  all  have  perished. 
But  in  their  fear  and  hatred  of  individual  free  thought 


THE  COMMONWEALTH.  175 

regarding  the  mysteries  of  religion,  Laud,  Calvin,  and 
the  Pope  agreed. 

With  the  progress  of  the  war,  the  Puritans,  who 
had  at  first  been  united  in  their  opposition  to  the 
crown,  themselves  divided;  one  party,  to  which  most 
of  the  peers  and  of  the  non-conforming  clergy  be- 
longed, being  anxious  to  reestablish  the  monarchy, 
and  set  up  a  rigid  Presbyterianism ;  the  other,  of 
whose  spirit  Cromwell  was  the  incarnation,  resolving 
each  day  more  firmly  to  crush  the  king  and  proclaim 
freedom  of  conscience;  and  it  was  this  doctrine  of 
toleration  which  was  the  snare  and  the  abomination  in 
the  eyes  of  evangelical  divines. 

Robert  Baillie,  the  Scotch  commissioner,  while  in 
London,  anxiously  watching  the  rise  of  the  power  of 
the  Independents  in  Parliament,  with  each  victory  of 
their  armies  in  the  field  wrote,  "  Liberty  of  conscience, 
and  toleration  of  all  and  any  religion,  is  so  prodigious 
an  impiety  that  this  religious  parliament  cannot  but 
abhor  the  very  meaning  of  it."  Nor  did  his  reverend 
brethren  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  fall  any  whit 
behind  him  when  they  rose  to  expound  the  word.  In 
a  letter  of  17th  May,  1644,  he  thus  described  their 
doctrine :  "  This  day  was  the  best  that  I  have  seen 
since  I  came  to  England.  .  .  .  After  D.  Twisse  had 
begun  with  a  brief  prayer,  Mr.  Marshall  prayed  large 
two  hours,  most  divinely,  confessing  the  sins  of  the 
members  of  the  assembly,  in  a  wonderful,  pathetick, 
and  prudent  way.  After,  Mr.  Arrowsmith  preached  an 
hour,  then  a  psalm  ;  thereafter,  Mr.  Vines  prayed  neai 


176  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

two  hours,  and  Mr.  Palmer  preached  an  hour,  and  Mr. 
Seaman  prayed  near  two  hours,  then  a  psalm ;  after, 
Mr.  Henderson  brought  them  to  a  sweet  conference  of 
the  heat  confessed  in  the  assembly,  and  other  seen  faults 
to  be  remedied,  and  the  conveniency  to  preach  against 
all  sects,  especially  Anabaptists  and  Antinomians. 
Dr.  Twisse  closed  with  a  short  prayer  and  blessing."  l 

But  Cromwell,  gifted  with  noble  instincts  and  tran- 
scendent political  genius,  a  layman,  a  statesman,  and 
a  soldier,  was  a  liberal  from  birth  till  death. 

"  Those  that  were  sound  in  the  faith,  how  proper  was 
it  for  them  to  labor  for  liberty,  .  .  .  that  men  might 
not  be  trampled  upon  for  their  consciences  !  Had  not 
they  labored  but  lately  under  the  weight  of  persecu- 
tion ?  And  was  it  fit  for  them  to  sit  heavy  upon  oth- 
ers ?  Is  it  ingenuous  to  ask  liberty  and  not  to  give  it  ? 
What  greater  hypocrisy  than  for  those  who  were  op- 
pressed by  the  bishops  to  become  the  greatest  oppres- 
sors themselves,  so  soon  as  their  yoke  was  removed  ? 
I  could  wish  that  they  who  call  for  liberty  now  also 
had  not  too  much  of  that  spirit,  if  the  power  were  in 
their  hands."  2 

"  If  a  man  of  one  form  will  be  trampling  upon  the 
heels  of  another  form,  if  an  Independent,  for  example, 
will  despise  him  under  Baptism,  and  will  revile  him 
and  reproach  him  and  provoke  him,  —  I  will  not  suffer 
it  in  him.  If,  on  the  other  side,  those  of  the  Anabap- 

1  Baillie's  Letters  and  Journals,  ii.  18. 

2  Speech  at  dissolution  of  first   Parliament,  Jan.  22,  1655. 
Carlyle's  Cromwell,  iv.  107. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  177 

tist  shall  be  censuring  the  godly  ministers  of  the 
nation  who  profess  tinder  that  of  Independency ;  or 
if  those  that  profess  under  Presbytery  shall  be  re- 
proaching or  speaking  evil  of  them,  traducing  and 
censuring  of  them,  as  I  would  not  be  willing  to  see 
the  day  when  England  shall  be  in  the  power  of  the 
Presbytery  to  impose  upon  the  consciences  of  others 
that  profess  faith  in  Christ,  —  so  I  will  not  endure 
any  reproach  to  them." 1 

The  number  of  clergymen  among  the  emigrants  to 
Massachusetts  was  very  large,  and  the  character  of 
the  class  who  formed  the  colony  was  influenced  by 
them  to  an  extraordinary  degree.  Many  able  pastors 
had  been  deprived  in  England  for  non-conformity, 
and  they  had  to  choose  between  silence  or  exile.  To 
men  of  their  temperament  silence  would  have  been  in- 
tolerable ;  and  most  must  have  depended  upon  their 
profession  for  support.  America,  therefore,  offered 
a  convenient  refuge.  The  motives  are  less  obvious 
which  induced  the  leading  laymen,  some  of  whom 
were  of  fortune  and  consequence  at  home,  to  face  the 
hardships  of  the  wilderness.  Persecution  cannot  be 
the  explanation,  for  a  government  under  which  Hamp- 
den  and  Cromwell  could  live  and  be  returned  to  Par- 
liament was  not  intolerable ;  nor  does  it  appear  that 
any  of  them  had  been  severely  dealt  with.  The  wish 
of  the  Puritan  party  to  have  a  place  of  retreat,  should 
the  worst  befall,  may  have  had  its  weight  with  indi- 
viduals, but  probably  the  influence  which  swayed  the 

1  Speech  made  September,  1656.     Carlyle's  Cromwell,  iv.  234. 


178  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

larger  number  was  the  personal  ascendancy  of  their 
pastors,  for  that  ascendancy  was  complete.  In  a  com- 
munity so  selected,  men  of  the  type  of  Baillie  must 
have  vastly  outnumbered  those  of  the  stamp  of  Crom- 
well, and  in  point  of  fact  their  minds  were  generally 
cast  in  the  ecclesiastical  mould  and  imbued  with  the 
ecclesiastical  feeling.  Governor  Dudley  represented 
them  well,  and  at  his  death  some  lines  were  found  in 
his  pocket  in  which  their  spirit  yet  glows  in  all  the 
fierceness  of  its  bigotry. 

"  Let  men  of  God  in  Courts  and  Churches  watch 
O're  such  as  do  a  Toleration  hatch, 
Lest  that  111  Egg  bring  forth  a  Cockatrice, 
To  poison  all  with  heresie  and  vice."  l 

In  former  ages  churches  had  been  comprehensive 
to  this  extent :  infants  had  been  baptized,  and,  when 
the  child  had  become  a  man,  he  had  been  admitted  to 
the  communion  as  a  matter  of  course,  unless  his  life 
had  given  scandal ;  but  to  this  system  the  Congrega- 
tionalist  was  utterly  opposed.  He  believed  that,  hu- 
man nature  being  totally  depraved,  some  became  re- 
generate through  grace ;  that  the  signs  of  grace  were 
as  palpable  as  any  other  traits  of  character,  and  could 
be  discerned  by  all  the  world  ;  therefore,  none  should 
be  admitted  to  the  sacrament  who  had  not  the  marks 
of  the  elect ;  and  as  in  a  well-ordered  community  the 
godly  ought  to  rule,  it  followed  that  none  should  be 
enfranchised  but  members  of  the  church. 

To  suppose  such  a  government  could  be  maintained 
in  England  was  beyond  the  dreams  even  of  an  enthu- 
1  Magnolia,  bk.  2,  ch.  v.  §  1. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  179 

siast,  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  controlling 
incentive  with  many  of  those  who  sailed  was  the  hope, 
with  the  aid  of  their  divines,  of  founding  a  religious 
commonwealth  in  the  wilderness  which  should  har- 
monize with  their  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures. 

The  execution  of  such  a  project  was,  however,  far 
from  easy.  It  would  have  been  most  unsafe  for  the 
emigrants  to  have  divulged  their  true  designs,  since 
these  were  not  only  unlawful,  but  would  have  been 
highly  offensive  to  the  king,  and  yet  they  were  too 
feeble  to  exist  without  the  protection  of  Great  Britain, 
therefore  it  was  necessary  to  secure  for  themselves  the 
rights  of  English  subjects,  and  to  throw  some  sem- 
blance at  least  of  the  sanction  of  law  over  the  organi- 
zation of  their  new  state.  Accordingly,  a  patent 1  was 
obtained  from  the  crown,  by  which  twenty-five  persons 
were  incorporated  under  the  name  of  the  Governor 
and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  New  England ; 
and  as  the  extent  of  the  powers  therein  granted  has 
given  rise  to  a  controversy  which  is  not  yet  closed,  it 
is  necessary  to  understand  the  nature  of  that  instru- 
ment in  order  to  comprehend  the  bearings  of  the  bit- 
ter strife  which  darkens  the  history  of  the  first  fifty 
years  of  the  colony. 

The  germ  of  the  written  charter  is  so  ancient  as  to 
be  lost  in  obscurity.     During  the  Middle  Ages,  op-  • 
pression  was,  speaking  generally,  the  accepted  con- 
dition of  society,  no  man  not  noble  having  the  right   ' 
in  theory,  or  the  power  in  practice,  to  control  his  own    ' 
actions  without  interference  from  his  feudal  superior.    " 
1  March  4,  1629. 


180  THE  COMMONWEALTH. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  only  hope  for  the  weak 
was  to  combine,  and  most  of  the  early  triumphs  of 
freedom  were  won  by  combinations  of  commons  against 
some  noble,  or  of  nobles  against  a  king.  Organization 
is  difficult  for  a  peasantry,  but  easy  for  burghers,  and 
from  the  outset  these  seem  to  have  united  for  their 
common  defense  against  the  neighboring  barons ;  and 
thus  was  born  the  mediaeval  guild. 

The  ancient  townsmen  were  not  usually  strong 
enough  to  fight  for  their  liberties,  so  they  generally 
resorted  to  purchase ;  they  agreed  with  their  lord 
upon  a  price  to  be  paid  for  a  privilege,  and  were 
given  for  their  money  a  grant,  which,  because  it  was 
written,  was  called  a  charter. 

The  following  charter  of  the  Merchants'  Guild  of 
Leicester  is  very  early  and  very  simple.  It  presup- 
poses that  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  the  local 
customs,  which  are  therefore  not  enumerated,  and  it 
shows  that  the  guild  of  Leicester  existed  as  a  corpora- 
tion at  the  Conquest,  and  must  already  have  held 
property  in  succession  and  been  liable  to  suit  through 
two  reigns :  — 

"  Robert,  Earl  of  Mellent,  to  Ralph,  and  aU  his 
barons,  French  and  English,  of  all  his  land  in  Eng- 
land, greeting :  Know  ye,  that  I  have  granted  to  my 
merchants  of  Leicester  their  Guild  Merchant,  with  all 
customs  which  they  held  in  the  time  of  King  William, 
of  King  William  his  son,  and  now  hold  in  the  time  of 
Henry  the  king. 

"  Witness  :  R.,  the  son  of  Alcitil." 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  181 

The  object  of  these  ancient  writings  was  only  to 
record  the  fact  of  corporate  existence ;  the  popular 
custom  by  which  the  guilds  were  regulated  was  taken 
for  granted ;  but  obviously  they  must  have  had  suc- 
cession, been  liable  to  suit,  able  to  contract,  and,  in  a 
word,  to  do  all  those  acts  which  were  afterward  set 
forth.  And  such  has  uniformly  been  the  process  by 
which  English  jurisprudence  has  been  shaped ;  a 
usage  grows  up  that  courts  recognize,  and,  by  their 
decisions,  establish  as  the  common  law ;  but  judicial 
decisions  are  inflexible,  and,  as  they  become  anti- 
quated, they  are  themselves  modified  by  legislation. 
Lawyers  observed  these  customary  companies  for 
some  centuries  before  they  learned  what  functions  were 
universal ;  but,  with  the  lapse  of  time,  the  patents  be- 
came more  elaborate,  until  at  length  a  voluminous 
grant  of  each  particular  power  was  held  necessary  to 
create  a  new  corporation. 

A  merchants'  guild,  like  the  one  of  Leicester,  was 
an  association  of  the  townsmen  for  their  common  wel- 
fare. Every  trader  was  then  called  a  merchant,  and 
as  almost  every  burgher  lived  by  trade,  and  was  also 
a  landowner,  to  the  extent  at  least  of  his  dwelling,  it 
followed  that  the  guild  practically  included  all  free 
male  inhabitants  ;  the  guild  hall  was  used  as  the  town 
hall,  the  guild  ordinances  were  the  town  ordinances, 
and  the  corporation  became  the  government  of  the 
borough,  and  as  such  chose  persons  to  represent  it  in 
Parliament,  when  summoned  by  the  king's  writ  to 
send  burgesses  to  Westminster. 


182  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

London  is  a  corporation  by  prescription  and  not  by 
virtue  of  any  particular  charter,  and  to  this  day  its 
city  hall  is  called  by  the  ancient  name,  Guild  Hall. 
But  with  the  growth  of  wealth  and  population  the 
original  fraternity  divided  into  craft  organizations  (so 
long  ago,  indeed,  that  no  record  of  its  existence  re- 
mains), and  each  trade  organized  a  guild,  with  a  hall 
of  its  own  ;  and  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  the  twelve 
livery  companies  —  the  Mercers,  the  Grocers,  the 
Goldsmiths,  the  Drapers,  the  Fishmongers,  and  the 
rest  —  became  the  government  of  the  capital  of  Eng- 
land. 

All  mediaeval  institutions  tended  to  aristocracy  and 
monopoly,  and,  accordingly,  after  the  merchant  guilds 
had  split  into  these  corporate  trade  unions,  boroughs 
waxed  exclusive,  and  membership,  instead  of  being 
an  incident  of  citizenship,  grew  to  confer  citizenship 
itself ;  thus  the  franchise,  being  confined  to  freemen, 
and  freedom  or  membership  having  come  to  depend 
on  birth,  marriage,  election,  or  purchase,  the  constit- 
uencies which  returned  a  majority  of  the  House  of 
Commons  grew  so  petty  and  corrupt  as  to  threaten 
the  existence  of  parliamentary  government  itself,  and 
the  abuse  at  last  culminated  in  the  agitation  which 
produced  the  Reform  Bill. 

When  legal  forms  had  taken  shape,  the  land  upon 
which  a  town  stood  was  not  unusually  granted  to  the 
mayor  and  commonalty  by  metes  and  bounds,1  to 

1  See  Charter  of  Plymouth,  granted  1439.  History  of  Plym- 
outh, p.  50.  The  incorporation  was  by  statute. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  183 

them  and  their  successors  forever,  upon  payment  of 
a  rent ;  and  the  mayor  and  common  council  were  em- 
powered to  make  laws  and  ordinances  for  the  local 
government,  and  to  fine,  imprison,  and  sometimes 
whip  and  otherwise  punish  offenders,  so  as  their  stat- 
utes, fines,  pains,  and  penalties  were  reasonable  and 
not  repugnant  to  law.1  The  foreign  trading  company 
was  an  offshoot  of  the  guild,  and  was  intended  to 
protect  commerce.  Obviously  some  such  organization 
must  have  been  necessary,  for,  if  property  was  inse- 
cure within  the  realm,  it  was  far  more  exposed  with- 
out; and,  indeed,  in  the  fourteenth  century,  English 
merchants  domiciled  on  the  Continent  could  hardly 
have  been  safer  than  Europeans  are  now  who  garrison 
the  so-called  factories  upon  the  coast  of  Africa. 

At  the  Conquest,  the  Hanse  merchants  had  a  house 
in  London,  which  was  afterward  famous  as  the  Steel 
Yard.  They  lived  a  strange  life,  —  a  combination  of 
that  of  the  trader,  the  soldier,  and  the  monk.  Their 
fortified  warehouse,  exposed  to  the  attacks  of  the  fero- 
cious mob,  was  occasionally  taken  and  sacked  ;  and  the 
garrison  shut  up  within  was  subject  to  an  iron  dis- 
cipline. They  were  forbidden  to  marry,  no  woman 
passed  the  gates,  nor  did  they  ever  sleep  a  night  with- 
out the  walls ;  but,  always  on  the  watch,  they  lay  in 
their  cells  ready  to  repulse  a  storm.  For  many  years 
these  Germans  seem  to  have  monopolized  the  carrying 
trade,  for  it  was  not  till  the  thirteenth  century  that 
Englishmen  appear  to  have  made  an  effort  at  compe- 
1  History  of  Tiverton,  App.  5. 


184  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

tition.  However,  about  1296  certain  London  mer- 
cers are  said  to  have  obtained  a  grant  of  privileges 
from  John,  Duke  of  Brabant,  and  to  have  established 
a  wool  market  at  Antwerp.1  The  recognition  of  the 
Flemish  government  was  of  course  necessary ;  but 
they  could  hardly  have  maintained  themselves  with- 
out some  support  at  home ;  for,  although  their  ware- 
house was  abroad,  they  were  English  merchants,  and 
they  must  have  relied  upon  English  protection.  No 
very  early  documents  remain ;  but  an  elaborate  char- 
ter, granted  by  Edward  IV.  in  1463,  proves  that  the 
corporation  had  then  had  a  long  legal  existence.2  The 
crown  thereby  confirmed  one  Obrey,  the  governor,  in 
his  office  during  pleasure,  with  the  wages  theretofore 
enjoyed ;  existing  laws  were  approved  ;  the  governor 
and  merchants  were  empowered  to  elect  twelve  Jus- 
ticers,  who  were  to  hold  courts  for  all  merchants  and 
mariners  in  those  parts ;  and  the  company  was  au- 
thorized to  regulate  the  trade  and  control  the  traders, 
provided  no  laws  were  passed  contrary  to  the  intent 
of  that  charter. 

Here,  as  in  the  Merchant  Guild,  the  inevitable  aris- 
tocratic revolution  took  place,  and  the  old  democratic 
brotherhood  became  a  strict  monopoly.  The  oppres- 
sion was  so  flagrant  that  a  petition  was  presented  to 
Parliament  in  1497  against  the  exactions  of  the  Mer- 
chant Adventurers,  as  the  association  was  then  called, 
by  which  it  appeared  that  interlopers,  trading  to  Hoi. 

1  Anderson's  History  of  Commerce. 
a  Hakluyt's  Voyages,  i.  230. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  185 

land  and  Flanders,  were  fined  £40,  whereas  any  sub- 
ject might  have  become  a  freeman  in  earlier  times  for 
an  old  noble,  or  about  6s.  8d. ;  1  and  the  scandal  was 
so  great  that  the  fine  was  fixed  at  10  marks,  or  £6 
13s.  4<Z.,  by  statute.  During  the  stagnation  of  the 
Middle  Ages  few  traces  of  such  commercial  enter- 
prises are  to  be  found,  but  with  the  sixteenth  century 
Europe  awoke  to  a  new  life  and  thrilled  with  a  new 
energy.  Trade  shared  in  the  impulse.  In  1554  Philip 
and  Mary  incorporated  the  Russia  Company  in  regu- 
lar modern  form ;  in  1581  the  Turkey  Company  was 
organized  ;  in  1600  the  East  India  Company  received 
its  charter ;  and,  to  come  directly  to  what  is  mate- 
rial, in  1629  Charles  I.  signed  the  patent  of  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  New 
England.  . 

Stripped  of  its  verbiage,  the  provisions  are  simple. 
The  stockholders,  or  "freemen,"  as  they  were  then 
called,  were  to  meet  once  a  quarter  in  a  "  General 
Court."  This  General  Court,  or  stockholders'  meet- 
ing, chose  the  officers,  of  which  there  were  twenty,  tho 
governor,  deputy  governor,  and  eighteen  assistants 
or  directors,  on  the  last  Wednesday  in  each  Easter 
Term.  The  assistants  were  intrusted  with  the  business 
management,  and  were  to  meet  once  a  month  or  of- 
tener ;  while  the  General  Court  was  empowered  to  ad- 
mit freemen,  and  "  to  make  laws  and  ordinances  for 
the  good  and  welfare  of  the  said  company,  and  for  the 
government  and  ordering  of  the  said  lands  and  planta- 
i  12  Heury  VII.  ch.  vi. 


186  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

tion,  and  the  people  inhabiting  and  to  inhabit  the  same, 
as  to  them  from  time  to  time  shall  be  thought  meet,  — 
so  as  such  laws  and  ordinances  be  not  contrary  or  re- 
pugnant to  the  laws  and  statutes  of  this  our  realm  of 
England."  The  criminal  jurisdiction  was  limited  to 
the  "  imposition  of  lawful  fines,  mulcts,  imprisonment, 
or  other  lawful  correction,  according  to  the  course  of 
other  corporations  in  this  our  realm  of  England." 

The  "  course  of  corporations  "  referred  to  was  well 
established.  The  Master  and  Wardens  of  the  Guild 
of  Drapers  in  London,  for  example,  could  make  'fc  such 
.  .  .  pains,  punishments,  and  penalties,  by  corporal 
punishment,  or  fines  and  amercements,"  .  .  .  "  as  shall 
seem  .  .  .  necessary,"  provided  their  statutes  were 
reasonable  and  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  the  king- 
dom.1 In  like  manner,  boroughs  such  as  Tiverton 
might  "  impose  and  assess  punishments  by  imprison- 
ments, etc.,  and  reasonable  fines  upon  offenders."  2 

But  all  lawyers  knew  that  such  grants  did  not  con- 
vey full  civil  or  criminal  jurisdiction,  which,  when 
thought  needful,  was  specially  conferred,  as  was  done 
in  the  case  of  the  East  India  Company  upon  their  pe- 
tition in  1624,8  and  in  that  of  Massachusetts  by  the 
charter  of  William  and  Mary. 

Such  was  the  undoubted  theory,  and  evidently  there 
must  always  have  been  some  practical  means  of  check- 
ing the  abuse  of  power  by  these  strong  organizations. 

1  Herbert's  Livery  Companies,  i.  489. 
3  See  History  of  Tiverton,  App.  6. 
8  Bruce,  Annals,  i.  252. 


THE  COMMONWEALTH.  187 

In  semi-barbarous  ages  the  sovereign  took  matters  into 
his  own  hands  by  seizing  the  franchise,  and  even  the 
Plantagenets  repeatedly  suspended  or  revoked  the  lib- 
erties of  London,  —  often,  no  doubt,  for  cause,  but 
sometimes  also  to  make  money  by  a  resale  ;  and  a  suc- 
cession of  these  arbitrary  forfeitures  demonstrated  that 
charters  to  be  of  value  must  be  beyond  the  grantor's 
control.  Resort  was  had  to  the  courts,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  finally  it  was  settled  that  relief  should  be 
given  by  a  writ  of  quo  warranto,  upon  which  the  ques- 
tion of  the  violation  of  privileges  could  be  tried  ;  and 
curious  records  still  remain  of  ancient  litigations  of 
this  nature. 

In  1321  complaint  was  made  against  the  London 
Weavers  for  injuring  the  public  by  passing  regulations 
tending  to  raise  the  price  of  cloth.1  It  was  alleged  that 
the  guild,  with  this  intent,  had  limited  the  working 
hours  in  the  day,  the  working  days  in  the  year,  and 
the  number  of  apprentices  the  freemen  might  employ ; 
and  the  prayer  was  that  for  these  abuses  the  charter 
should  be  annulled. 

The  cause  was  tried  before  a  jury,  who  found  the 
truth  of  some  of  the  charges ;  but  the  judgment  is  lost, 
as  the  roll  is  imperfect. 

There  was  danger,  moreover,  to  the  citizen  from  the 
oppression  of  these  powerful  bodies,  as  well  as  to  the 
public  from  their  usurpations ;  and  were  authority 
wholly  wanting,  argument  would  be  almost  unneces- 
sary to  prove  that  some  appellate  tribunal  must  always 
1  Liber  Customanm,  i.  416-424. 


188  THE  COMMONWEALTH. 

have  had  jurisdiction  to  pass  upon  the  validity  of  cor- 
porate legislation ;  for  otherwise  any  summary  punish- 
ment might  have  been  inflicted  upon  an  individual, 
though  notoriously  unlawful,  and  the  only  redress  pos- 
sible would  have  been  subsequent  proceedings  to  vacate 
the  charter. 

Through  appeals,  corporations  could  be  controlled  ; 
and  by  none  was  this  control  so  stubbornly  disputed, 
or  its  necessity  so  clearly  demonstrated,  as  by  the 
Governor  and  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  in  New 
England.  A  good  illustration  is  the  trial  of  the 
Quaker,  Wenlock  Christison,  for  his  life  in  1661. 

"  William  Leddra  being  thus  dispatch'd,  it  was  re- 
solved to  make  an  end  also  of  Wenlock  Christison. 
He  therefore  was  brought  from  the  prison  to  the  court 
at  Boston,  where  the  governor  John  Indicot,  and  the 
deputy  governor  Richard  Billingham,  being  both  pres- 
ent, it  was  told  him,  '  Unless  you  will  renounce  your 
religion,  you  shall  surely  die.'  But  instead  of  shrink- 
ing, he  said  with  an  undaunted  courage,  '  Nay,  I  shall 
not  change  my  religion,  nor  seek  to  save  my  life  ; 
neither  do  I  intend  to  deny  my  Master ;  but  if  I  lose 
my  life  for  Christ's  sake,  and  the  preaching  of  the  gos- 
pel, I  shall  save  my  life.'  .  .  .  John  Indicot  asked  him 
'  what  he  had  to  say  for  himself,  why  he  should  not 
die  ? '  .  .  .  Then  Wenlock  asked,  '  By  what  law  will 
you  put  me  to  death  ? '  The  answer  was,  '  We  have  a 
law,  and  by  our  law  you  are  to  die.'  '  So  said  the 
Jews  of  Christ,'  (reply'd  Wenlock)  '  we  have  a  law, 
and  by  our  law  he  ought  to  die.  Who  empowered 


THE  COMMONWEALTH.  189 

you  to  make  that  law  ?  '  To  which  one  of  the  board 
answered,  '  We  have  a  patent,  and  are  the  patentees ; 
judge  whether  we  have  not  power  to  make  laws.' 
Hereupon  Wenlock  asked  again,  'How,  have  you 
power  to  make  laws  repugnant  to  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land?' 'No,'  said  the  governor.  'Then,'  (reply 'd 
Wenlock,)  'you  are  gone  beyond  your  bounds,  and 
have  forfeited  your  patent ;  and  that  is  more  than  you 
can  answer.'  'Are  you,'  ask'd  he,  'subjects  to  the 
king,  yea  or  nay  ? '  .  .  .  To  which  one  said,  '  Yea,  we 
are  so.'  '  Well,'  said  Wenlock,  '  so  am  I.'  .  .  .  '  There- 
fore seeing  that  you  and  I  are  subjects  to  the  king, 
I  demand  to  be  tried  by  the  laws  of  my  own  nation.' 
It  was  answered,  You  shall  be  tried  by  a  bench  and  a 
jury.'  For  it  seems  they  began  to  be  afraid  to  go  on  in 
the  former  course,  of  trial  without  a  jury.  .  .  .  But 
Wenlock  said,  '  That  is  not  the  law,  but  the  manner 
of  it ;  for  I  never  heard  nor  read  of  any  law  that  was 
in  England  to  hang  Quakers.'  To  this  the  governor 
reply'd  '  that  there  was  a  law  to  hang  Jesuits.'  To 
which  Wenlock  return'd,  '  If  you  put  me  to  death,  it 
is  not  because  I  go  under  the  name  of  a  Jesuit,  but  of 
a  Quaker.  Therefore,  I  appeal  to  the  laws  of  my  own 
nation.'  But  instead  of  taking  notice  of  this,  one 
said  '  that  he  was  in  their  hands,  and  had  broken  their 
law,  and  they  would  try  him.'  " l 

Yet,  though  the  ecclesiastical  party  in  Massachusetts 
obstinately  refused  to  admit  appeals  to  the  British 
judiciary  up  to  the  last  moment  of  their  power,  for  the 
1  Sewel,  pp.  278,  279. 


190  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

obvious  reason  that  the  existence  of  the  theocracy  de- 
pended upon  the  enforcement  of  such  legislation  as 
that  under  which  the  Quakers  suffered,  there  was  no 
principle  in  the  whole  range  of  English  jurisprudence 
more  firmly  established.  By  a  statute  of  Henry  VI. 
passed  in  1436,  corporate  enactments  were  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  judges  for  approval ;  and  the  Court  of 
King's  Bench  always  set  aside  such  as  were  bad,  when- 
ever the  question  of  their  validity  was  presented  for 
adjudication.1 

But  discussion  is  futile ;  the  proposition  is  self-evi- 
dent, that  an  association  endowed  with  the  capacity  of 
acting  like  a  single  man,  for  certain  defined  objects, 
which  shall  attempt  other  objects,  or  shall  seek  to  com- 
pass its  ends  by  unlawful  means,  violates  the  condition 
upon  which  its  life  has  been  granted,  transcends  the 
limits  of  its  existence,  and  forfeits  its  privileges ;  and 
that  under  such  circumstances  its  ordinances  are  void, 
and  none  are  bound  to  yield  them  their  obedience. 

Approached  thus  from  the  standpoint  of  legal  his- 
tory, no  doubt  can  exist  concerning  the  scope  of  the 
franchise  secured  by  the  Puritans  for  the  Massachu- 
setts colony.  The  instrument  obtained  from  Charles  I. 
embodied  certain  of  their  number  in  an  English  cor- 
poration, whose  only  lawful  business  was  the  American 
trade,  as  the  business  of  the  East  India  Company  was 

i  Stat.  15  H.  VI.  ch.  6.  Stat.  19  H.  VIL  ch.  7.  Clark's 
Case,  5  Coke,  633,  decided  A.  D.  1596.  See  Kyd  on  Corporations, 
ii.  107-110,  where  authorities  are  collected.  Child  v.  Hudson 
Bay  Co.,  2  P.  W.  207. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  191 

trade  in  Hindostan.  To  enable  them  to  act  effec- 
tively, a  tract  of  land  in  New  England,  between  the 
Merrimack  and  the  Charles,  was  conveyed  to  them,  as 
the  soil  upon  which  a  town  stood  was  conveyed  to  the 
mayor  and  commonalty.  Within  this  territory  they 
were  authorized  to  established  their  plantations  and 
forts,  which  they  were  empowered  to  defend  against 
attack,  as  the  Hanse  merchants  defended  the  Steel 
Yard  in  London.  They  were  also  permitted  to  gov- 
ern the  country  within  their  grant  by  reasonable  regu- 
lations calculated  to  preserve  the  peace,  and  of  much 
the  same  character  as  the  municipal  ordinances  of 
towns,  subject,  of  course,  to  judicial  supervision.  The 
corporation  itself  was  created  subject  to  the  municipal 
laws  of  England,  and  could  have  no  existence  without 
the  realm ;  and  though  perhaps  even  then  the  Amer- 
ican wilderness  might  have  been  held  to  belong  to  the 
British  empire,  it  formed  no  part  of  the  kingdom,1 
and  was  altogether  beyond  the  limits  of  that  juris- 
diction from  whose  customs  and  statutes  the  life  of 
this  imaginary  being  sprang.  Therefore,  the  govern- 
ing body  could  legally  exercise  its  functions  only 
when  domiciled  in  some  English  town.2 

Sir  Richard  Sheldon,  the  solicitor-general,  advised 
the  king  that  he  was  signing  a  charter  containing  "  such 
.  .  .  clauses  for  ye  electing  of  Governors  and  Officers 
here  in  England,  .  .  .  and  powers  to  make  lawes  and 

1  Blackstone's  Commentaries,  i.  109. 

2  On  this  subject  see  the  able  paper  of  Mr.  Deane,  in  Massa- 
chusetts Historical  Society  Proceedings,  December,  1869,  p.  166. 


192  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

ordinances  for  setling  ye  governement  and  magistracy^ 
for  y6  plantacon  there,  ...  as  ...  are  usuallie  al- 
lowed to  Corporacons  in  England."  *  And  there  can 
be  no  question  that  his  opinion  was  sound. 

Nothing  can  be  imagined  more  ill-suited  to  serve 
as  the  organic  law  of  a  new  commonwealth  than  this 
instrument.  No  provision  was  made  for  superior  or 
probate  courts,  for  a  representative  assembly,  for  the 
incorporation  of  counties  and  towns,  for  police  or 
taxation.  In  short,  hardly  a  step  could  be  taken 
toward  founding  a  territorial  government  based  upon 
popular  suffrage  without  working  a  forfeiture  of  the 
charter  by  abuse  of  the  franchise.  The  colonists,  it 
is  true,  afterward  advanced  very  different  theories  of 
construction;  but  that  they  were  well  aware  of  their 
legal  position  is  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  after 
some  hesitation  from  apprehension  of  consequences, 
they  ventured  on  the  singularly  bold  and  lawless 
measure  of  secretly  removing  their  charter  to  Amer- 
ica and  establishing  their  corporation  in  a  land  which 
they  thought  would  be  beyond  the  process  of  West- 
minster Hall.2  The  details  of  the  settlement  are 
related  in  many  books,  and  require  only  the  brief- 
est mention  here.  In  1628  an  association  of  gen- 
tlemen bought  the  tract  of  country  lying  between 
the  Merrimack  and  Charles  from  the  Council  of  Plym- 
outh, and  sent  Endicott  to  take  charge  of  their  pur- 
chase. A  royal  patent  was,  however,  thought  neces- 
sary for  the  protection  of  a  large  colony,  and  one 

i  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.  1869-70,  p.  173.      2  1629,  Aug.  29. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  193 

having  been  obtained,  the  Company  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  was  at  once  organized  in  England,  Endicott  was 
appointed  governor  in  America,  and  six  vessels  sailed 
during  the  spring  of  1629,  taking  out  several  hundred 
persons  and  a  "plentiful  provision  of  godly  minis- 
ters." In  August  the  church  of  Salem  was  gathered 
and  Mr.  Higginson  was  consecrated  as  their  teacher. 
In  that  same  month  Winthrop,  Saltonstall,  and  others 
met  at  Cambridge  and  signed  an  agreement  binding 
themselves  upon  the  faith  of  Christians  to  embark  for 
the  plantation  by  the  following  March;  "Provided 
always  that  before  the  last  of  September  next,  the 
whole  government,  together  with  the  patent,  ...  be 
first  by  an  order  of  court  legally  transferred  and  es- 
tablished to  remain  with  us  and  others  which  shall 
inhabite  upon  the  said  plantation."  l  The  Company 
accepted  the  proposition,  Winthrop  was  chosen  gov- 
ernor, and  he  anchored  in  Salem  harbor  in  June.2 
More  than  a  thousand  settlers  landed  before  winter, 
and  the  first  General  Court  was  held  at  Boston  in 
October ;  nor  did  the  emigration  thus  begun  entirely 
cease  until  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Parliament. 

From  the  beginning  the  colonists  took  what  meas- 
ures they  thought  proper,  without  regarding  the  lim- 
itations of  the  law.  Counties  and  towns  had  to  be 
practically  incorporated,  taxes  were  levied  upon  in- 
habitants, and  in  1634  all  pretence  of  a  General  Court 
of  freemen  was  dropped,  and  the  towns  chose  dele- 
gates to  represent  them,  though  the  legislature  was 
i  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  i.  28.  2  1630. 


194  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

not  divided  into  two  branches  until  ten  years  later. 
When  the  government  had  become  fully  organized 
supreme  power  was  vested  in  the  General  Court,  a 
legislature  composed  of  two  houses;  the  assistants, 
or  magistrates,  as  they  were  called,  and  the  depu- 
ties. The  governor,  deputy  governor,  and  assistants 
were  elected  by  a  general  vote ;  but  each  town  sent 
two  deputies  to  Boston. 

For  some  years  justice  was  dispensed  by  the  magis- 
trates according  to  the  Word  of  God,  but  gradually  a 
judicial  system  was  established ;  the  magistrate's  local 
court  was  the  lowest,  from  whence  causes  went  by 
appeal  to  the  county  courts,  one  of  whose  judges  was 
always  an  assistant,  and  probate  jurisdiction  was  given 
to  the  two  held  at  Ipswich  and  at  Salem.  From  the 
judgments  entered  here  an  appeal  lay  to  the  Court  of 
Assistants,  and  then  to  the  General  Court,  which  was 
the  tribunal  of  last  resort.  The  clergy  and  gentry 
pertinaciously  resisted  the  enactment  of  a  series  of 
general  statutes,  upon  which  the  people  as  steadily 
insisted,  until  at  length,  in  1641,  "  The  Body  of  Lib- 
erties" was  approved  by  the  legislature.  This  com- 
pilation was  the  work  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ward,  pastor 
of  Ipswich,  and  contained  a  criminal  code  copied  al- 
most word  for  word  from  the  Pentateuch,  but  apart 
from  matters  touching  religion,  the  legislation  was 
such  as  English  colonists  have  always  adopted.  A 
major-general  was  elected  who  commanded  the  mili- 
tia, and  in  1652  money  was  coined. 

The  social  institutions,  however,  have  a  keener  in- 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  195 

terest,  for  they  reflect  that  strong  cast  of  thought 
which  has  stamped  its  imprint  deep  into  the  character 
of  so  much  of  the  American  people.  The  seventeenth 
century  was  aristocratic,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
larger  part  of  New  England  were  divided  into  three 
classes,  the  commonalty,  the  gentry,  and  the  clergy. 
Little  need  be  said  of  the  first,  except  that  they  were 
a  brave  and  determined  race,  as  ready  to  fight  as 
Cromwell's  saints,  who  made  Rupert's  troopers  "  as 
stubble  to  their  swords ;  "  that  they  were  intelligent, 
and  would  not  brook  injustice;  and  that  they  were 
resolute,  and  would  not  endure  oppression.  All  know 
that  they  were  energetic  and  shrewd. 

The  gentry  had  the  weight  in  the  community  that 
comes  with  wealth  and  education,  and  they  received 
the  deference  then  paid  to  birth,  for  they  were  for  the 
most  part  the  descendants  of  English  country- gentle- 
men. As  a  matter  of  course  they  monopolized  the 
chief  offices ;  and  they  were  not  sentenced  by  the 
courts  to  degrading  punishments,  like  whipping,  for 
their  offences,  as  other  criminals  were.  They  even 
showed  some  wish  at  the  outset  to  create  legal  dis- 
tinctions, such  as  a  magistracy  for  life,  and  a  disposi- 
tion to  magnify  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Court  of  Assist- 
ants, whose  seats  they  filled ;  but  the  action  of  the 
people  was  determined  though  quiet,  a  chamber  of 
deputies  was  chosen,  and  such  schemes  were  heard 
of  no  more. 

Yet  notwithstanding  the  existence  of  this  aristo- 
cratic element,  the  real  substance  of  influence  and 


196  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

power  lay  with  the  clergy.  It  has  been  taught  as  an 
axiom  of  Massachusetts  history,  that  from  the  outset 
the  town  was  the  social  and  political  unit;  but  an 
analysis  of  the  evidence  tends  to  show  that  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  was  eccle- 
siastical, and  the  congregation,  not  the  town,  the  basis 
upon  which  the  fabric  rested.  By  the  constitution  of 
the  corporation  the  franchise  went  with  the  freedom 
of  the  company  ;  but  in  order  to  form  a  constituency 
which  would  support  a  sacerdotal  oligarchy,  it  was 
enacted  in  1631  "  that  for  time  to  come  noe  man 
shalbe  admitted  to  the  freedome  of  this  body  polli- 
ticke,  but  such  as  are  members  of  some  of  the 
churches  within  .  .  .  the  same."  l  Thus  though  com- 
municants were  not  necessarily  voters,  no  one  could  be 
a  voter  who  was  not  a  communicant ;  therefore  the 
town-meeting  was  in  fact  nothing  but  the  church 
meeting,  possibly  somewhat  attenuated,  and  called 
by  a  different  name.  By  this  insidious  statute  the 
clergy  seized  the  temporal  power,  which  they  held  till 
the  charter  fell.  The  minister  stood  at  the  head  of 
the  congregation  and  moulded  it  to  suit  his  purposes 
and  to  do  his  will ;  for  though  he  could  not  when  op- 
posed admit  an  inhabitant  to  the  sacrament,  he  could 
peremptorily  exclude  therefrom  all  those  of  whom  he 
disapproved,  for  "none  are  propounded  to  the  congre- 
gation, except  they  be  first  allowed  by  the  elders." 2 
In  such  a  community  the  influence  of  the  priesthood 

1  Mass.  Records,  i.  87. 

2  Winthrop's  reply  to  Vane,  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.ed.  i.  101. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  197 

must  have  been  overwhelming.  Not  only  in  an  age 
without  newspapers  or  tolerable  roads  were  their  ser- 
mons, preached  several  times  each  week  to  every 
voter,  the  most  effective  of  political  harangues ;  but, 
unlike  other  party  orators,  they  were  not  forced  to 
stimulate  the  sluggish,  or  to  convince  the  hostile,  for 
from  a  people  glowing  with  fanaticism,  each  elder 
picked  his  band  of  devoted  servants  of  the  church, 
men  passionately  longing  to  do  the  will  of  Christ, 
whose  commands  concerning  earth  and  heaven  their 
pastor  had  been  ordained  to  declare.  Nor  was  their 
power  bounded  by  local  limits ;  though  seldom  holding 
office  themselves,  they  were  solemnly  consulted  by  the 
government  on  every  important  question  that  arose, 
whether  of  war  or  peace,  and  their  counsel  was  rarely 
disregarded.  They  gave  their  opinion,  no  matter  how 
foreign  the  subject  might  be  to  their  profession  or 
their  education ;  and  they  had  no  hesitation  in  pass- 
ing upon  the  technical  construction  of  the  charter 
with  the  authority  of  a  bench  of  judges.  An  amus- 
ing example  is  given  by  Winthrop:  "The  General 
Court  assembled  again,  and  all  the  elders  were  sent 
for,  to  reconcile  the  differences  between  the  magis- 
trates and  deputies.  When  they  were  come  the  first 
question  put  to  them  was,  .  .  .  whether  the  magistrates 
are,  by  patent  and  election  of  the  people,  the  standing 
council  of  this  commonwealth  in  the  vacancy  of  the 
General  Court,  and  have  power  accordingly  to  act  in 
all  cases  subject  to  government,  according  to  the  said 
patent  and  the  laws  of  this  jurisdiction ;  and  when 


198  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

any  necessary  occasions  call  for  action  from  authority, 
in  cases  where  there  is  no  particular  express  law  pro- 
vided, there  to  be  guided  by  the  word  of  God,  till  the 
General  Court  give  particular  rules  in  such  cases. 
The  elders,  having  received  the  question,  withdrew 
themselves  for  consultation  about  it,  and  the  next  day 
sent  to  know,  when  we  would  appoint  a  time  that  they 
might  attend  the  court  with  their  answer.  The  mag- 
istrates and  deputies  agreed  upon  an  hour  "  and 
..."  their  answer  was  affirmative,  on  the  magis- 
trates behalf,  in  the  very  words  of  the  question,  with 
some  reasons  thereof.  It  was  delivered  in  writing  by 
Mr.  Cotton  in  the  name  of  them  all,  they  being  all 
present,  and  not  one  dissentient."  Then  the  magis- 
trates propounded  four  more  questions,  the  last  of 
which  is  as  follows  :  "  Whether  a  judge  be  bound  to 
pronounce  such  sentence  as  a  positive  law  prescribes, 
in  case  it  be  apparently  above  or  beneath  the  merit  of 
the  offence?"  To  which  the  elders  replied  at  great 
length,  saying  that  the  penalty  must  vary  with  the 
gravity  of  the  crime,  and  added  examples :  "  So  any 
sin  committed  with  an  high  hand,  as  the  gathering  of 
sticks  on  the  Sabbath  day,  may  be  punished  with  death 
when  a  lesser  punishment  may  serve  for  gathering 
sticks  privily  and  in  some  need."  l  Yet  though  the 
clerical  influence  was  so  unbounded  the  theocracy  it- 
self was  exposed  to  constant  peril.  In  monarchies 
such  as  France  or  Spain  the  priests  who  rule  the  king 
have  the  force  of  the  nation  at  command  to  dispose  of 
1  Winthrop,  ii.  204,  205. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  199 

at  their  will ;  but  in  Massachusetts  a  more  difficult 
problem  was  presented,  for  the  voters  had  to  be  con- 
trolled. By  the  law  requiring  freemen  to  be  church- 
members  the  elders  meant  to  grasp  the  key  to  the  suf- 
frage, but  experience  soon  proved  that  more  stringent 
regulation  was  needed. 

According  to  the  original  Congregational  theory 
each  church  was  complete  and  independent,  and  elected 
its  own  officers  and  conducted  its  own  worship,  free 
from  interference  from  without,  except  that  others  of 
the  same  communion  might  offer  advice  or  admoni- 
tion. Under  the  theocracy  no  such  loose  system  was 
possible,  for  heresy  might  enter  in  three  different 
ways  ;  first,  under  the  early  law,  "  blasphemers  "  might 
form  a  congregation  and  from  thence  creep  into  the 
company ;  second,  an  established  church  might  fall 
into  error;  third,  an  unsound  minister  might  be 
chosen,  who  would  debauch  his  flock  by  securing  the 
admission  of  sectaries  to  the  sacrament.  Above  all,  a 
creed  was  necessary  by  means  of  which  false  doctrine 
might  be  instantly  detected  and  condemned.  Accord- 
ingly, one  by  one,  as  the  need  for  vigilance  increased, 
laws  were  passed  to  guard  these  points  of  danger. 

First,  in  1635  it  was  enacted,1  "  Forasmuch  as  it 
hath  bene  found  by  sad  experience,  that  much  trouble 
and  disturbance  hath  happened  both  to  the  church 
&  civill  state  by  the  officers  &  members  of  some 
churches,  wch  have  bene  gathered  ...  in  an  vndue 
manner  ...  it  is  ...  ordered  that  .  .  .  this  Court 
i  1635-6,  March  3. 


200  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

doeth  not,  nor  will  hereafter,  approue  of  any  such  com- 
panyes  of  men  as  shall  henceforthe  ioyne  in  any  pre- 
tended way  of  church  fellowshipp,  without  they  shall 
first  acquainte  the  magistrates,  &  the  elders  of  the 
great'  pte  of  the  churches  in  this  jurisdicon,  with 
their  intencons,  and  have  their  approbacon  herein. 
And  ffurther,  it  is  ordered,  that  noe  pson,  being  a 
member  of  any  churche  which  shall  hereafter  be  gath- 
ered without  the  approbacon  of  the  magistrates,  &  the 
greater  pte  of  the  said  churches,  shallbe  admitted  to 
the  ffreedome  of  this  comonwealthe."  l  t 

In  1648  all  the  elders  met  in  a  synod  at  Cambridge ; 
they  adopted  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith 
and  an  elaborate  "  Platform  of  Church  Discipline," 
the  last  clause  of  which  is  as  follows  :  "  If  any  church 
.  .  .  shall  grow  schismatical,  rending  itself  from  the 
communion  of  other  churches,  or  shall  walk  incor- 
rigibly and  obstinately  in  any  corrupt  way  of  their 
own  contrary  to  the  rule  of  the  word  ;  in  such  case 
the  magistrate,  ...  is  to  put  forth  his  coercive  power, 
as  the  matter  shall  require."  2 

In  1658  the  General  Court  declared  :  "  Whereas  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  Christian  magistrate  to  take  care 
the  people  be  fed  wth  wholesome  &  sound  doctrine,  & 
in  this  houre  of  temptation,  ...  it  is  therefore  ordered, 
that  henceforth  no  person  shall  .  .  .  preach  to  any  com- 
pany of  people,  whither  in  church  society  or  not,  or  be 
ordeyned  to  the  office  of  a  teaching  elder,  where  any 
two  organnick  churches,  councill  of  state,  or  Generall 

1  Mass.Rec.  i.  168.  2  Magnolia,  bk.  5,  ch.  xvii.  §  9. 


THE  COMMONWEALTH.  201 

Court  shall  declare  theire  dissatisfaction  thereat,  either 
in  reference  to  doctrine  or  practize  .  .  .  and  in  case 
of  ordination  .  .  .  timely  notice  thereof  shall  be  given 
unto  three  or  fower  of  the  neighbouring  organicke 
churches  for  theire  approbation." 1  And  lastly,  in 
1679,  the  building  of  meeting-houses  was  forbidden, 
without  leave  from  the  freemen  of  the  town  or  the 
General  Court.2 

But  legislation  has  never  yet  controlled  the  action  of 
human  thought.  All  experience  shows  that  every  age, 
and  every  western  nation,  produces  men  whose  nature 
it  is  to  follow  the  guidance  of  their  reason  in  the  face 
of  every  danger.  To  exterminate  these  is  the  task  of 
religious  persecution,  for  they  can  be  silenced  only  by 
death.  Thus  is  a  dominant  priesthood  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  alternative  of  surrendering  its  power 
or  of  killing  the  heretic,  and  those  bloody  deeds  that 
cast  their  sombre  shadow  across  the  history  of  the 
Puritan  Commonwealth  cannot  be  seen  in  their  true 
bearing  unless  the  position  of  the  clergy  is  vividly  be- 
fore the  mind. 

Cromwell  said  that  ministers  were  "  helpers  of, 
not  lords  over,  God's  people,"  8  but  the  orthodox  New 
Englander  was  the  vassal  of  his  priest.  Winthrop 
was  the  ablest  and  the  most  enlightened  magistrate 
the  ecclesiastical  party  ever  had,  and  he  tells  us  that 

1  Mass.  Rec.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  328. 

2  Mass.  Rec.  v.  213. 

8  Cromwell  to  Dundass,  letter  cxlviii.  Carlyle's  Cromwell, 
iii.  72. 


202  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

"  I  honoured  a  faithful  minister  in  my  heart  and  could 
have  kissed  his  feet."  l  If  the  governor  of  Massachu- 
setts and  the  leader  of  the  emigration  could  thus  de- 
scribe his  moral  growth,  —  a  man  of  birth,  education, 
and  fortune,  who  had  had  wide  experience  of  life,  and 
was  a  lawyer  by  profession,  —  the  awe  and  terror  felt 
by  the  mass  of  the  communicants  can  be  imagined. 

Jonathan  Mitchel,  one  of  the  most  famous  of  the 
earlier  divines,  thus  describes  his  flock :  "  They  were 
a  gracious,  savoury-spirited  people,  principled  by  Mr. 
Shepard,  liking  an  humbling,  mourning,  heart-break- 
ing ministry  and  spirit;  living  in  religion,  praying 
men  and  women."  And  "  he  would  speak  with  such 
a  transcendent  majesty  and  liveliness,  that  the  people 
.  .  .  would  often  shake  under  his  dispensations,  as  if 
they  had  heard  the  sound  of  the  trumpets  from  the 
burning  mountain,  and  yet  they  would  mourn  to  think, 
that  they  were  going  presently  to  be  dismissed  from 
such  an  heaven  upon  earth."  ..."  When  a  publick 
admonition  was  to  be  dispensed  unto  any  one  that  had 
offended  scandalously  .  .  .  the  hearers  would  be  all 
drowned  in  tears,  as  if  the  admonition  had  been,  as 
indeed  he  would  with  much  artifice  make  it  be  di- 
rected unto  them  all ;  but  such  would  be  the  compas- 
sion, and  yet  the  gravity,  the  majesty,  the  scriptural 
and  awful  pungency  of  these  his  dispensations,  that 
the  conscience  of  the  offender  himself,  could  make  no 
resistance  thereunto."  2 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Winthrop,  i.  61. 
9  Magnolia,  bk.  4,  ch.  iv.  §§  9,  10. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  203 

Their  arrogance  was  fed  by  the  submission  of  the 
people,  and  they  would  not  tolerate  the  slighest  oppo- 
sition even  from  their  most  devoted  retainers.  The 
Keforming  Synod  was  held  in  1679.  "  When  the  re- 
port of  a  committee  on  '  the  evils  that  had  provoked 
the  Lord  '  came  up  for  consideration,  '  Mr.  Wheelock 
declared  that  there  was  a  cry  of  injustice  in  that 
magistrates  and  ministers  were  not  rated '  (taxed), 
'  which  occasioned  a  very  warm  discourse.  Mr.  Stod- 
der  '  (minister  of  Northampton)  '  charged  the  deputy 
with  saying  what  was  not  true,  and  the  deputy  gov- 
ernor '  (Danforth)  '  told  him  he  deserved  to  be  laid 
by  the  heels,  etc.' 

" '  After  we  broke  up,  the  deputy  and  several  others 
went  home  with  Mr.  Stodder,  and  the  deputy  asked 
forgiveness  of  him  and  told  him  he  freely  forgave  him, 
but  Mr.  Stodder  was  high.'  The  next  day  '  the  deputy 
owned  his  being  in  too  great  a  heat,  and  desired  the 
Lord  to  forgive  it,  and  Mr.  Stodder  did  something, 
though  very  little,  by  the  deputy.' " l  Wheelock  was 
lucky  in  not  having  to  smart  more  severely  for  his 
temerity,  for  the  unfortunate  Ursula  Cole  was  sen- 
tenced to  pay  <£5  2  or  be  whipped  for  the  lighter  crime 
of  saying  "  she  had  as  lief  hear  a  cat  mew  "  3  as  Mr. 

1  Palfrey's  History  of  New  England,  iii.  330,  note  2.     Extract 
from  Journal  of  Rev.  Peter  Thacher. 

2  Five  pounds  was  equivalent  to  a  sum  between  one  hundred 
and  twenty-five  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  now.     Ursula 
was  of  course  poor,  or  she  would  not  have  been  sentenced  to  be 
whipped.     The  fine  was  therefore  extremely  heavy. 

8  Frothingham,  History  of  Charleslown,  p.  208. 


204  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

Shepard  preach.  The  daily  services  in  the  churches 
consumed  so  much  time  that  they  became  a  grievance 
with  which  the  government  was  unable  to  cope. 

In  1633  the  Court  of  Assistants,  thinking  "the 
keepeing  of  lectures  att  the  ordinary  howres  nowe  ob- 
serued  in  the  forenoone,  to  be  dyvers  wayes  peiudi- 
ciall  to  the  comon  good,  both  in  the  losse  of  a 
whole  day,  &  bringing  othr  charges  &  troubles  to  the 
place  where  the  lecture  is  kept,"  ordered  that  they 
should  not  begin  before  one  o'clock.^  The  evil  still 
continued,  for  only  the  next  year  it  was  found  that  so 
many  lectures  "  did  spend  too  much  time  and  proved 
overburdensome,"  and  they  were  reduced  to  two  a 
week.2  Notwithstanding  these  measures,  relief  was 
not  obtained,  because,  as  the  legislature  complained 
in  1639,  lectures  "  were  held  till  night,  and  sometimes 
within  the  night,  so  as  such  as  dwelt  far  off  could  not 
get  home  in  due  season,  and  many  weak  bodies  could 
not  endure  so  long,  in  the  extremity  of  the  heat  or  cold, 
without  great  trouble  and  hazard  of  their  health,"  3 
and  a  consultation  between  the  elders  and  magistrates 
was  suggested. 

But  to  have  the  delights  of  the  pulpit  abridged  was 
more  than  the  divines  could  bear.  They  declared 
roundly  that  their  privileges  were  invaded ; 4  and  the 
General  Court  had  to  give  way.  A  few  lines  in  Win- 
throp's  Journal  give  an  idea  of  the  tax  this  loquacity 
must  have  been  upon  the  time  of  a  poor  and  scattered 

1  Mass.  Rec.  i.  110.  2  Felt's  Eccl.  Hist.  i.  201. 

8  Winthrop,  i.  324.  *  Idem,  i.  325. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  205 

people.  "  Mr.  Hooker  being  to  preach  at  Cambridge, 
the  governor  and  many  others  went  to  hear  him.  .  .  . 
He  preached  in  the  afternoon,  and  having  gone  on, 
with  much  strength  of  voice  and  intention  of  spirit, 
about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  he  was  at  a  stand,  and 
told  the  people  that  God  had  deprived  him  both  of  his 
strength  and  matter,  &c.  and  so  went  forth,  and  about 
half  an  hour  after  returned  again,  and  went  on  to 
very  good  purpose  about  two  hours."  l 

Common  men  could  not  have  kept  this  hold  upon 
the  inhabitants  of  New  England,  but  the  clergy  were 
learned,  resolute,  and  able,  and  their  strong  but  nar- 
row minds  burned  with  fanaticism  and  love  of  power  ; 
with  their  beliefs  and  under  their  temptations  perse- 
cution seemed  to  them  not  only  their  most  potent 
weapon,  but  a  duty  they  owed  to  Christ  —  and  that 
duty  they  unflinchingly  performed.  John  Cotton,  the 
most  gifted  among  them,  taught  it  as  a  holy  work : 
"  But  the  good  that  is  brought  to  princes  and  subjects 
by  the  due  punishment  of  apostate  seducers  and  idol- 
aters and  blasphemers  is  manifold. 

"  First,  it  putteth  away  evill  from  the  people  and 
cutteth  off  a  gangreene,  which  would  spread  to  further 
ungodlinesse.  .  .  . 

*'  Secondly,  it  driveth  away  wolves  from  worrying 
and  scattering  the  sheep  of  Christ.  For  false  teach- 
ers be  wolves,  .  .  .  and  the  very  name  of  wolves 
holdeth  forth  what  benefit  will  redound  to  the  sheep, 
by  either  killing  them  or  driving  them  away. 
1  Winthrop,  i.  304. 


206  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

"Thirdly,  such  executions  upon  such  evill  doers 
causeth  all  the  country  to  heare  and  feare,  and  doe  no 
more  such  wickednesse.  .  .  .  Yea  as  these  punishments 
are  preventions  of  like  wickednesse  in  some,  so  are 
they  wholesome  medicines,  to  heale  such  as  are  curable 
of  these  eviles.  .  .  . 

"Fourthly,  the  punishments  executed  upon  false 
prophets  and  seducing  teachers,  doe  bring  downe 
showers  of  God's  blessings  upon  the  civill  state.  .  .  . 

"  Fifthly,  it  is  an  honour  to  God's  Justice  that  such 
judgments  are  executed.  .  .  ."  l 

All  motives  combined  to  drive  them  headlong  into 
cruelty ;  for  in  the  breasts  of  the  larger  number,  even 
the  passion  of  bigotry  was  cool  beside  the  malignant 
hate  they  felt  for  those  whose  opinions  menaced  their 
earthly  power  and  dominion  ;  and  they  never  wearied 
of  exhorting  the  magistrates  to  destroy  the  enemies 
of  the  church.  "  Men's  lusts  are  sweet  to  them,  and 
they  would  not  be  disturbed  or  disquieted  in  their 
sin.  Hence  there  be  so  many  such  as  cry  up  tollera- 
tion  boundless  and  libertinism  so  as  (if  it  were  in 
their  power)  to  order  a  total  and  perpetual  confine- 
ment of  the  sword  of  the  civil  magistrate  unto  its 
scabbard ;  (a  notion  that  is  evidently  distructive  to 
this  people,  and  to  the  publick  liberty,  peace,  and 
prosperity  of  any  instituted  churches  under  heaven.)"2 

"  Let  the  magistrates  coercive  power  in  matters  of 

1  Bloody  Tenent  Washed,  pp.  137,  138. 

3  Eye  Salve,  Election  Sermon,  by  Mr.  Shepard  of  Charles- 
town,  p.  21. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  207 

religion  (therefore)  be  still  asserted,  seing  he  is  one 
who  is  bound  to  God  more  than  any  other  men  to 
cherish  his  true  religion ;  .  .  .  and  how  wofull  would 
the  state  of  things  soon  be  among  us,  if  men  might 
have  liberty  without  coiitroll  to  profess,  or  preach,  or 
print,  or  publish  what  they  list,  tending  to  the  seduc-. 
tion  of  others."  l  Such  feelings  found  their  fit  ex- 
pression in  savage  laws  against  dissenting  sects  ;  these, 
however,  will  be  dealt  with  hereafter;  only  those 
which  illustrate  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
theocracy  need  be  mentioned  here.  One  chief  cause 
of  schism  was  the  hearing  of  false  doctrine ;  and  in 
order  that  the  people  might  not  be  led  into  tempta- 
tion, but  might  on  the  contrary  hear  true  exposition 
of  the  word,  every  inhabitant  was  obliged  to  attend 
the  services  of  the  established  church  upon  the  Lord's 
day  under  a  penalty  of  fine  or  imprisonment ;  the  fine 
not  to  exceed  5s.  (equal  to  about  $5  now)  for  every 
absence.2 

"  If  any  Christian  so  called  .  .  .  shall  contemptu- 
ously behave  himselfe  toward  ye  word  preached,  or  ye 
messengrs  thereof  called  to  dispence  ye  same  in  any 
congregation,  ...  or  like  a  sonn  of  Corah  cast  upon 
his  true  doctrine  or  himselfe  any  reproach  .  .  .  shall 
for  ye  first  scandole  be  convented  .  .  .  and  bound  to 
their  good  behaviour;  and  if  a  second  time  they 
breake  forth  into  ye  like  contemptuous  carriages, 
either  to  pay  £5  to  y6  publike  treasury  or  to  stand 

1  Eye  Salve,  p.  38. 

9  1634-35,  4  March.    Mass.  Rec.  i.  140. 


208  THE   COMMONWEALTH, 

two  houres  openly  upon  a  block  4  foote  high,  on  a 
lecture  day,  wth  a  pap  fixed  on  his  breast  w*1  this, 
A  Wanton  Gospeller,  written  in  capitall  lett's  y* 
othrs  may  fear  &  be  ashamed  of  breaking  out  into  the 
like  wickednes."  l 

"  Though  no  humane  powr  be  Lord  ovr  ye  faith  & 
consciences  of  men  and  therefore  may  not  constraine 
ym  to  beleeve  or  pfes  ag8*  their  conscience,  yet  be- 
cause such  as  bring  in  damnable  heresies  tending  to 
ye  subversion  of  y6  Christian  faith  .  .  .  ought  duely 
to  be  restrained  from  such  notorious  impiety,  if  any 
Christian  .  .  .  shall  go  about  to  subvert  .  .  .  ye  Chris- 
tian faith,  by  broaching  .  .  .  any  damnable  heresy, 
as  deniing  ye  imortality  of  ye  soule,  or  ye  resurrection 
of  ye  body,  or  any  sinn  to  be  repented  of  in  ye  regen*- 
ate,  or  any  evill  done  by  ye  outward  man  to  be  ac- 
counted sinn,  or  deniing  y*  Christ  gave  himself e  a  ran- 
some  for  or  sinns  ...  or  any  othr  heresy  of  such 
nature  &  degree  .  .  .  shall  pay  to  ye  comon  treas- 
ury during  y6  first  six  months  20s.  a  month  and  for  ye 
next  six  months  40s.  p.  m.,  and  so  to  continue  dureing 
his  obstinacy ;  and  if  any  such  pson  shall  endeavr  to 
seduce  others  ...  he  shall  forfeit  .  .  .  for  every  sev- 
erall  offence  .  .  .  five  pounds."  2 

"  For  y6  honnor  of  y6  aetaemall  God,  whome  only 
wee  worpp  and  serve,"  (it  is  ordered  that)  "no 
pson  wthin  this  jurisdicon,  whether  X*ian  or  pagan, 
shall  wittingly  and  willingly  psume  to  blaspheme  his 

1  1646,  4  Nov.     Mass.  Rec.  ii.  179. 

2  1646,  4  Nov.     Mass.  Rec.  ii.  177. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  209 

holy  name  either  by  wilfull  or  obstinate  denying  y8 
true  God,  or  reproach  ye  holy  religion  of  God,  as  if  it 
were  but  a  polliticke  devise  to  keepe  ignorant  men 
in  awe,  ...  or  deny  his  creation  or  goumnt  of  ye 
world,  or  shall  curse  God,  or  shall  vtter  any  other 
eminent  kind  of  blasphemy,  of  ye  like  nature  and  de- 
gree ;  if  any  pson  or  psons  wtsoeuer  wthin  our  juris- 
dicon  shall  breake  this  lawe  they  shall  be  putt  to 
death."  i 

The  special  punishments  for  Antinomians,  Baptists, 
Quakers,  and  other  sectaries  were  fine  and  imprison- 
ment, branding,  whipping,  mutilation,  banishment, 
and  hanging.  Nor  were  the  elders  men  to  shrink 
from  executing  these  laws  with  the  same  ferocious 
spirit  in  which  they  were  enacted.  Remonstrance 
and  command  were  alike  neglected.  The  Long  Par- 
liament warned  them  to  beware ;  Charles  II.  repeat- 
edly ordered  them  to  desist ;  their  trusted  and  dear- 
est friend,  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall,  wrote  from  London 
to  Cotton :  "  It  doth  not  a  little  grieve  my  spirit  to 
heare  what  sadd  things  are  reported  dayly  of  your 
tyranny  and  persecution  in  New  England,  as  that  you 
fyne,  whip,  and  imprison  men  for  their  consciences,"  2 
and  told  them  their  "  rigid  wayes  have  laid  you  very 
lowe  in  the  hearts  of  the  saynts."  Thirteen  of  the 
most  learned  and  eminent  nonconforming  ministers  in 
England  wrote  to  the  governor  of  Massachusetts  im- 
ploring him  that  he  and  the  General  Court  would  not 

1  Mass.  Rcc.  iii.  98. 

2  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  127. 


210  THE  COMMONWEALTH. 

by  their  violence  "  put  an  advantage  into  the  hands  of 
some  who  seek  pretences  and  occasions  against  our 
liberty."  1  Winthrop,  the  wisest  and  ablest  champion 
the  clergy  ever  had,  hung  back.  Like  many  another 
political  leader,  he  was  forced  by  his  party  into  meas- 
ures from  which  his  judgment  and  his  heart  recoiled. 
He  tells  us  how,  on  a  question  arising  between  him  and 
Mr.  Haynes,  the  elders  "  delivered  their  several  rea- 
sons which  all  sorted  to  this  conclusion,  that  strict  dis- 
cipline, both  in  criminal  offences  and  in  martial  af- 
fairs, was  more  needful  in  plantations  than  in  a  settled 
state,  as  tending  to  the  honor  and  safety  of  the  gos- 
pel. Whereupon  Mr.  Winthrop  acknowledged  that 
he  was  convinced  that  he  had  failed  in  over  much 
lenity  and  remissness,  and  would  endeavor  (by  God's 
assistance)  to  take  a  more  strict  course  thereafter."  2 
But  his  better  nature  revolted  from  the  foid  task  and 
once  more  regained  ascendancy  just  as  he  sunk  in 
death.  For  while  he  was  lying  very  sick,  Dudley 
came  to  his  bedside  with  an  order  to  banish  a  here- 
tic :  "  No,"  said  the  dying  man,  "  I  have  done  too 
much  of  that  work  already,"  and  he  would  not  sign 
the  warrant.3 

Nothing  could  avail,  for  the  clergy  held  the  state 
within  their  grasp,  and  shrank  from  no  deed  of  blood 
to  guard  the  interests  of  their  order. 

The  case  of  Gorton  may  serve  as  an  example  of  a 
rigor  that  shocked  even  the  Presbyterian  Baillie;  it 

1  Magnolia,  bk.  7,  ch.  iv.  §  4.  2  Winthrop,  i.  178. 

8  Life  and  Letters  of  Winthrop,  ii.  393. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  211 

must  be  said  in  explanation  of  his  story  that  the  mag- 
istrates condemned  Gorton  and  his  friends  to  death 
for  the  crime  of  heresy  in  obedience  to  the  unanimous 
decision  of  the  elders,1  but  the  deputies  refusing  to 
concur,  the  sentence  of  imprisonment  in  irons  during 
the  pleasure  of  the  General  Court  was  agreed  upon 
as  a  compromise.  "  Only  they  in  New  England  are 
more  strict  and  rigid  than  we,  or  any  church,  to  sup- 
press, by  the  power  of  the  magistrate,  all  who  are  not 
of  their  way,  to  banishment  ordinarily  and  presently 
even  to  death  lately,  or  perpetual  slavery ;  for  one 
Jortin,  sometime  a  famous  citizen  here  for  piety,  hav- 
ing taught  a  number  in  New  England  to  cast  oft  the 
word  and  sacrament,  and  deny  angels  and  devils,  and 
teach  a  gross  kind  of  union  with  Christ  in  this  life,  by 
force  of  arms  was  brought  to  New  Boston,  and  there 
with  ten  of  the  chief  of  his  followers,  by  the  civil 
court  was  discerned  perpetual  slaves,  but  the  votes  of 
many  were  for  their  execution.  They  lie  in  irons, 
though  gentlemen ;  and  out  of  their  prison  write  to 
the  admiral  here,  to  deal  with  the  parliament  for  their 
deliverance."  2 

Like  all  phenomena  of  nature,  the  action  of  the 
mind  is  obedient  to  law  ;  the  cause  is  followed  by  the 
consequence  with  the  precision  that  the  earth  moves 
round  the  sun,  and  impelled  by  this  resistless  power 
his  destiny  is  wrought  out  by  man.  To  the  ecclesias- 
tic a  deep  debt  of  gratitude  is  due,  for  it  was  by  his 
effort  that  the  first  step  from  barbarism  was  made. 

i  Winthrop,  ii.  146.  2  Baillie's  Letters,  ii.  17, 18. 


212  THE   COMMONWEALTH. 

In  the  world's  childhood,  knowledge  seems  divine,  and 
those  who  first  acquire  its  rudiments  claim,  and  are 
believed,  to  have  received  it  by  revelation  from  the 
gods.  In  an  archaic  age  the  priest  is  likewise  the  law- 
giver and  the  physician,  for  all  erudition  is  concen- 
trated in  one  supremely  favored  class  —  the  sacred 
caste.  Their  discoveries  are  kept  profoundly  secret, 
and  yet  to  perpetuate  their  mysteries  among  their 
descendants  they  found  schools  which  are  the  only  re- 
positories of  learning ;  but  the  time  must  inevitably 
come  when  this  order  is  transformed  into  the  deadliest 
enemy  of  the  civilization  which  it  has  brought  into  be- 
ing The  power  of  the  spiritual  oligarchy  rests  upon 
superstitious  terrors  which  dwindle  before  advancing 
enlightenment ;  hence  the  clergy  have  become  reaction- 
ary, have  sought  to  stifle  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry, 
and  have  used  the  schools  which  they  have  builded 
as  instruments  to  keep  alive  unreasoning  prejudice, 
or  to  serve  their  selfish  ends.  This,  then,  has  been 
the  fiercest  battle  of  mankind ;  the  heroic  struggle 
to  break  down  the  sacerdotal  barrier,  to  popularize 
knowledge,  and  to  liberate  the  mind,  began  ages  be- 
fore the  crucifixion  upon  Calvary ;  it  still  goes  on. 
In  this  cause  the  noblest  and  the  bravest  have  poured 
forth  their  blood  like  water,  and  the  path  to  freedom 
has  been  heaped  with  the  corpses  of  her  martyrs. 

In  that  tremendous  drama  Massachusetts  has  played 
her  part ;  it  may  be  said  to  have  made  her  intellectual 
life ;  and  it  is  the  passion  of  the  combat  which  gives 
an  interest  at  once  so  sombre  and  so  romantic  to  her 
story. 


THE   COMMONWEALTH.  213 

In  the  tempest  of  the  Reformation  a  handful  of  the 
sternest  rebels  were  cast  upon  the  bleak  New  England 
coast,  and  the  fervor  of  that  devotion  which  led  them 
into  the  wilderness  inspired  them  with  the  dream  of 
reproducing  the  institutions  of  God's  chosen  people,  a 
picture  of  which  they  believed  was  divinely  preserved 
for  their  guidance  in  the  Bible.  What  they  did  in 
reality  was  to  surrender  their  new  commonwealth  to 
their  priests.  Yet  they  were  a  race  in  whose  bone  and 
blood  the  spirit  of  free  thought  was  bred  ;  the  impulse 
which  had  goaded  them  to  reject  the  Roman  dogmas 
was  quick  within  them  still,  and  revolt  against  the  ec- 
clesiastical yoke  was  certain.  The  clergy  upon  their 
side  trod  their  appointed  path  with  the  precision  of 
machines,  and,  constrained  by  an  inexorable  destiny, 
they  took  that  position  of  antagonism  to  liberal 
thought  which  has  become  typical  of  their  order. 
And  the  struggles  and  the  agony  by  which  this  poor 
and  isolated  community  freed  itself  from  its  gloomy 
bondage,  the  means  by  which  it  secularized  its  educa- 
tion and  its  government,  won  for  itself  the  blessing  of 
free  thought  and  speech,  and  matured  a  system  of 
constitutional  liberty  which  has  Veen  the  foundation/^) 
of  the  American  Union,  rise  in  dignity  to  one  of  the 
supreme  efforts  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  n. 

THE   ANTINOMIANS. 

HABIT  may  be  defined  with  enough  accuracy  for 
ordinary  purposes  as  the  result  of  reflex  action,  or 
the  immediate  response  of  the  nerves  to  a  stimulus, 
without  the  intervention  of  consciousness.  Many  bod- 
ily functions  are  naturally  reflex,  and  most  move- 
ments may  be  made  so  by  constant  repetition ;  they 
are  then  executed  independently  of  the  will.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  the  social  fabric  rests  on  the 
control  this  tendency  exerts  over  the  actions  of  men ; 
and  its  strength  is  strikingly  exemplified  in  armies, 
which,  when  well  organized,  are  machines,  wherein 
subjection  to  command  is  instinctive,  and  insubordi- 
nation, therefore,  practically  impossible. 

An  analogous  phenomenon  is  presented  by  the 
church,  whose  priests  have  intuitively  exhausted  their 
ingenuity  in  weaving  webs  of  ceremonial,  as  soldiers 
have  directed  their  energies  to  perfecting  manuals  of 
arms ;  and  the  evidence  leads  to  the  conclusion  that 
increasing  complexity  of  ritual  indicates  a  densening 
ignorance  and  a  deepening  despotism.  The  Hindoos, 
the  Spaniards,  and  the  English  are  types  of  the  pro- 
gression. 

Within  the  historic  ages  unnumbered  methods  of 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  215 

sacerdotal  discipline  have  been  evolved,  but  whether 
the  means  used  to  compass  the  end  has  been  the  be- 
wildering maze  of  a  Levitical  code,  or  the  rosary  and 
the  confessional  of  Rome,  the  object  has  always  been 
to  reduce  the  devotee  to  the  implicit  obedience  of  the 
trooper.  And  the  stupendous  power  of  these  amaz- 
ingly perfect  systems  for  destroying  the  capacity  for 
original  thought  cannot  be  fully  realized  until  the 
mind  has  been  brought  to  dwell  upon  the  fact  that 
the  greatest  eras  of  human  progress  have  begun  with 
the  advent  of  those  who  have  led  successful  insur- 
rection ;  nor  can  the  dazzling  genius  of  these  brilliant 
exceptions  be  appreciated,  unless  it  be  remembered 
how  infinitely  small  has  been  the  number  of  those 
among  mankind  who,  having  been  once  drilled  to 
rigid  conformity,  have  not  lapsed  into  automatism, 
but  have  been  endowed  with  the  mental  energy  to  re- 
volt. On  the  other  hand,  though  ecclesiastics  have 
differed  widely  in  the  details  of  the  training  they  have 
enforced  upon  the  faithful,  they  have  agreed  upon  this 
cardinal  principle :  they  have  uniformly  seized  upon 
the  education  of  the  young,  and  taught  the  child  to 
revere  the  rites  in  which  he  was  made  to  partake 
before  he  could  reason  upon  their  meaning,  for  they 
understood  well  that  the  habit  of  abject  submission  to 
authority,  when  firmly  rooted  in  infancy,  would  ripen 
into  a  second  nature  in  after  years,  and  would  almost 
invariably  last  till  death. 

But   this   manual   of    religion,    this   deadening   of 
the  soul   by  making   mechanical  prayers  and   genu- 


216  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

flexions  the  gauge  of  piety,  has  always  roused  the 
deepest  indignation  in  the  great  reformers ;  and,  un- 
appalled  by  the  most  ghastly  perils,  they  have  never 
ceased  to  exhort  mankind  to  cast  off  the  slavery  of 
custom  and  emancipate  the  mind.  Christ  rebuked 
tlie  Pharisees  because  they  rejected  the  command- 
ment of  God  to  keep  their  own  tradition ;  Paul  pro- 
claimed that  men  should  be  justified  by  faith  without 
the  deeds  of  the  law ;  and  Luther  preached  that  the 
Christian  was  free,  that  the  soul  did  not  live  because 
the  body  wore  vestments  or  prayed  with  the  lips,  and 
he  denounced  the  tyranny  of  the  clergy,  who  arrogated 
to  themselves  a  higher  position  than  others  who  were 
Christian  in  the  spirit.  On  their  side  priesthoods 
know  these  leaders  of  rebellion  by  an  unerring  in- 
stinct and  pursue  them  to  the  death. 

The  ministers  of  New  England  were  formalists  to 
the  core,  and  the  society  over  which  they  dominated 
was  organized  upon  the  avowed  basis  of  the  manifes- 
tation of  godliness  in  the  outward  man.  The  sad 
countenance,  the  Biblical  speech,  the  sombre  garb,  the 
austere  life,  the  attendance  at  worship,  and,  above  all, 
the  unfailing  deference  paid  to  themselves,  were  the 
marks  of  sanctification  by  which  the  elders  knew  the 
saints  on  earth,  for  whom  they  were  to  open  the  path 
to  fortune  by  making  them  members  of  the  church. 

Happily  for  Massachusetts,  there  has  never  been 
a  time  when  all  her  children  could  be  docile  under 
such  a  rule ;  and,  among  her  champions  of  freedom, 
none  have  been  braver  than  those  who  have  sprung 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  217 

from  the  ranks  of  her  ministry,  as  the  fate  of  Roger 
Williams  had  already  proved.  In  such  a  community, 
before  the  ecclesiastical  power  had  been  solidified 
by  time,  only  a  spark  was  needed  to  kindle  a  confla- 
gration, and  that  spark  was  struck  by  a  woman. 

So  early  as  1634  a  restless  spirit  was  abroad,  for 
Winthrop  was  then  set  aside,  and  now,  in  1636, 
young  Henry  Vane  was  enthusiastically  elected  gov- 
ernor, though  he  was  only  twenty-four,  and  had  been 
but  a  few  months  in  the  colony.  The  future  seemed 
bright  and  serene,  yet  he  had  hardly  taken  office  be- 
fore the  storm  burst,  which  not  only  overthrew  him, 
but  was  destined  to  destroy  that  unhappy  lady  whom 
the  Rev.  Thomas  Welde  called  the  American  Jezebel.1 

John  Cotton,  the  former  rector  of  St.  Botolph's, 
was  the  teacher  of  the  Boston  church.  By  common 
consent  the  leader  of  the  clergy,  he  was  the  most  brill- 
iant, and,  in  some  respects,  the  most  powerful  man 
in  the  colony.  Two  years  before,  Anne  Hutchinson, 
with  all  her  family,  had  followed  him  from  her  home 
in  Lincolnshire  into  the  wilderness,  for,  "when  our 
teacher  came  to  New  England,  it  was  a  great  trou- 
ble unto  me,  my  brother,  Wheelwright,  being  put  by 
also."  2  A  gentlewoman  of  spotless  life,  with  a  kind 
and  charitable  heart,  a  vigorous  understanding  and 
dauntless  courage,  her  failings  were  vanity  and  a  bit- 

1  Opinions  are  divided  as  to  the  authorship  of  the  Short  Story, 
but  I  conclude  from  internal  evidence  that  the  ending  at  least 
was  written  by  Mr.  Welde. 

8  Hutch.  Hist.  ii.  MO. 


218  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

ter  tongue  toward  those  whom  she  disliked.1  Unfortu- 
nately also  for  herself,  she  was  one  of  the  enthusiasts 
who  believe  themselves  subject  to  divine  revelations, 
for  this  pretension  would  probably  in  any  event  have 
brought  upon  her  the  displeasure  of  the  church.  It 
is  worth  while  to  attempt  some  logical  explanation  of 
the  dislike  felt  by  the  Massachusetts  elders  to  any  sug- 
gestion of  such  supernatural  interposition.  The  half- 
unconscious  train  of  reasoning  on  which  they  based 
their  claim  to  exact  implicit  obedience  from  the  peo- 
ple seems,  when  analyzed,  to  yield  this  syllogism:  All 
revelation  is  contained  in  the  Bible ;  but  to  interpret 
the  ancient  sacred  writings  with  authority,  a  techni- 
cal training  is  essential,  which  is  confined  to  priests ; 
therefore  no  one  can  define  God's  will  who  is  not  of 
the  ministry.  Had  the  possibility  of  direct  revelation 
been  admitted  this  reasoning  must  have  fallen ;  for 
then,  obviously,  the  word  of  an  inspired  peasant  would 
have  outweighed  the  sermon  of  an  uninspired  divine ; 
it  follows,  necessarily,  that  ecclesiastics  so  situated 
would  have  been  jealous  of  lay  preaching,  and  abso- 
lutely intolerant  of  the  inner  light. 

In  May,  1636,  the  month  of  Vane's  election, 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  had  been  joined  by  her  brother-in- 
law,  John  Wheelwright,  the  deprived  vicar  of  Bilsby. 
Her  social  influence  was  then  at  its  height ;  her  ami- 
able disposition  had  made  her  popular,  and  for  some 
time  past  she  had  held  religious  meetings  for  women 
at  her  house.  The  ostensible  object  of  these  gather- 
1  Cotton,  Way  of  New  England  Churches,  p.  62. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  219 

ings  was  to  recapitulate  the  sermons  of  the  week ;  but 
the  step  from  discussion  to  criticism  was  short,  and  it 
soon  began  to  be  said  that  she  cast  reproach  "  upon 
the  ministers,  .  .  .  saying  that  none  of  them  did 
preach  the  covenant  of  free  grace,  but  Master  Cotton, 
and  that  they  have  not  the  scale  of  the  Spirit,  and  so 
were  not  able  ministers  of  the  New  Testament."  1  Or, 
to  use  colloquial  language,  she  accused  the  clergy  of 
being  teachers  of  forms,  and  said  that,  of  them  all, 
Cotton  alone  appealed  to  the  animating  spirit  like 
Luther  or  St.  Paul. 

"  A  company  of  legall  professors,"  quoth  she,  "  lie 
poring  on  the  law  which  Christ  hath  abolished."  2 

Such  freedom  of  speech  was,  of  course,  intolerable ; 
and  so,  as  Cotton  was  implicated  by  her  imprudent 
talk,  the  elders  went  to  Boston  in  a  body  in  October 
to  take  him  to  task.  In  the  hope  of  adjusting  the 
difficulty,  he  suggested  a  friendly  meeting  at  his 
house,  and  an  interview  took  place.  At  first  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  with  much  prudence,  declined  to  commit 
herself  ;  but  the  Rev.  Hugh  Peters  besought  her  so 
earnestly  to  deal  frankly  and  openly  with  them  that 
she,  confiding  in  the  sacred  character  of  a  confidential 
conversation  with  clergymen  in  the  house  of  her  own 
religious  teacher,  committed  the  fatal  error  of  ad- 
mitting that  she  saw  a  wide  difference  between  Mr. 
Cotton's  ministry  and  theirs,  and  that  they  could  not 
preach  a  covenant  of  grace  so  clearly  as  he,  because 

1  Short  Story,  p.  36. 

2  W under-Working  Providence,  Poole's  ed.  p.  102. 


220  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

they  had  not  the  seal  of  the  Spirit.  The  progress  of 
the  new  opinion  was  rapid,  and  it  is  clear  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson  had  only  given  expression  to  a  feeling  of  discon- 
tent which  was  both  wide-spread  and  deep.  Before 
winter  her  adherents,  or  those  who  condemned  the 
covenant  of  works, —  in  modern  language,  the  liberals, 
—  had  become  an  organized  political  party,  of  which 
Vane  was  the  leader ;  and  here  lay  their  first  danger. 

Notwithstanding  his  eminent  ability,  he  was  then 
but  a  boy,  and  the  task  was  beyond  his  strength.  The 
stronghold  of  his  party  was  Boston,  where,  except 
some  half-dozen,1  the  whole  congregation  followed  him 
and  Cotton  :  yet  even  here  he  met  with  the  powerful 
opposition  of  Winthrop  and  the  pastor,  John  Wilson. 
In  the  country  he  was  confronted  by  the  solid  body 
of  the  clergy,  whose  influence  proved  sufficient  to  hold 
together  &  majority  of  the  voters  in  substantially  all 
the  towns,  so  that  the  conservatives  never  lost  control 
of  the  legislature. 

The  position  was  harassing,  and  his  nerves  gave 
way  under  the  strain.  In  December  he  called  a  court 
and  one  day  suddenly  announced  that  he  had  received 
letters  from  England  requiring  his  immediate  return  ; 
but  when  some  of  his  friends  remonstrated  he  "  brake 
forth  into  tears  and  professed  that,  howsoever  the 
causes  propounded  for  his  departure  were  such  as  did 
concern  the  utter  ruin  of  his  outward  estate,  yet  he 
would  rather  have  hazarded  all "  .  .  .  "  but  for  the 
danger  he  saw  of  God's  judgment  to  come  upon  us 
1  Winthrop,  i.  212. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  221 

for  these  differences  and  dissensions  which  he  saw 
amongst  us,  and  the  scandalous  imputations  brought 
upon  himself,  as  if  he  should  be  the  cause  of  all."  A 

Such  a  flight  was  out  of  the  question.  The  weight 
of  his  name  and  the  protection  given  his  supporters 
by  the  power  of  his  family  in  England  could  not  be 
dispensed  with,  and  therefore  the  Boston  congregation 
intervened.  After  a  day's  reflection  he  seems  himself 
to  have  become  convinced  that  he  had  gone  too  far 
to  recede,  so  he  "  expressed  himself  to  be  an  obedient 
child  to  the  church  and  therefore  .  .  .  durst  not  go 
away." 2 

That  a  young  and  untried  man  like  Vane  should 
have  grown  weary  of  his  office  and  longed  to  escape 
will  astonish  no  one  who  is  familiar  with  the  charac- 
ter and  the  mode  of  warfare  of  his  adversaries. 

In  that  society  a  layman  could  not  retort  upon  a 
minister  who  insulted  him,  nor  could  Vane  employ  the 
arguments  with  which  Cromwell  so  effectually  silenced 
the  Scotch  divines.  The  following  is  a  specimen  of 
the  treatment  to  which  he  was  probably  almost  daily 
subjected,  and  the  scene  in  this  instance  was  the  more 
mortifying  because  it  took  place  before  the  assembled 
legislature.  » 

"  The  ministers  had  met  a  little  before  and  had 
drawn  into  heads  all  the  points  wherein  they  sus- 
pected Mr.  Cotton  did  differ  from  them,  and  had  pro- 
pounded them  to  him,  and  pressed  him  to  a  direct 
answer  ...  to  every  one ;  which  he  had  promised. 

1  Winthrop,  i.  207.  2  Idem,  i.  208. 


222  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

.  .  .  This  meeting  being  spoke  of  in  the  court  the 
day  before,  the  governour  took  great  offence  at  it, 
as  being  without  his  privity,  &c.,  which  this  day  Mr. 
Peter  told  him  as  plainly  of  (with  all  due  reverence), 
and  how  it  had  sadded  the  ministers'  spirits,  that  he 
should  be  jealous  of  their  meetings,  or  seem  to  re- 
strain their  liberty,  &c.  The  governour  excused  his 
speech  as  sudden  and  upon  a  mistake.  Mr.  Peter 
told  him  also,  that  before  he  came,  within  less  than 
two  years  since,  the  churches  were  in  peace.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Peter  also  besought  him  humbly  to  consider  his  youth 
and  short  experience  in  the  things  of  God,  and  to  be- 
ware of  peremptory  conclusions  which  he  perceived 
him  to  be  very  apt  unto."  1  This  coarse  bully  was  the 
same  Hugh  Peters  of  whom  Whitelock  afterward  com- 
plained that  he  often  advised  him,  though  he  "under- 
stood little  of  the  law,  but  was  very  opinionative," 2 
and  who  was  so  terrified  at  the  approach  of  death 
that  on  his  way  to  the  scaffold  he  had  to  drink  liquor 
to  keep  from  fainting.3 

"  Mr.  Wilson  "  also  "  made  a  very  sad  speech  to  the 
General  Court  of  the  condition  of  our  churches,  and 
the  inevitable  danger  of  separation,  if  these  differ- 
ences .  .  .  were  not  speedily  remedied,  and  laid  the 
blame  upon  these  new  opinions  .  .  .  which  all  the 
magistrates  except  the  governour  and  two  others  did 
confirm  and  all  the  ministers  but  two."  4  Those  two 
were  John  Cotton  and  John  "Wheelwright,  the  preach- 
ers of  the  covenant  of  grace. 

1  Winthrop,  i.  209.  *  Memorials,  p.  521. 

*  Burnet,  i.  162.  *  Winthrop,  i.  209. 


THE  ANTINOM1ANS.  223 

Their  brethren  might  well  make  sad  speeches,  for 
their  cup  of  bitterness  was  full ;  but  they  must  be 
left  to  describe  for  themselves  the  tempest  of  fear  and 
wrath  that  raged  within  them.  "  Yea,  some  that  had 
beene  begotten  to  Christ  by  some  of  their  faithfull 
labours  in  this  land"  (England,  where  the  tract  was 
published,)  "  for  whom  they  could  have  laid  downe 
their  lives,  and  not  being  able  to  beare  their  absence 
followed  after  them  thither  to  New  England  to  enjoy 
their  labours,  yet  these  falling  acquainted  with  those 
seducers,  were  suddenly  so  altered  in  their  affections 
toward  those  their  spiritual!  fathers,  that  they  would 
neither  heare  them,  nor  willingly  come  in  their  com- 
pany, professing  they  had  never  received  any  good 
from  them."  .  .  .  "Now  the  faithfull  ministers  of 
Christ  must  have  dung  cast  on  their  faces  .  .  .  must 
be  pointed  at  as  it  were  with  the  finger,  and  reproached 
by  name,  such  a  church  officer  is  an  ignorant  man, 
and  knows  not  Christ ;  such  an  one  is  under  a  cov- 
enant of  works :  such  a  pastor  is  a  proud  man,  and 
would  make  a  good  persecutor  ...  so  that  through 
these  reproaches  occasion  was  given  to  men,  to  ab- 
horre  the  offerings  of  the  Lord."  l 

"  Now,  one  of  them  in  a  solemne  convention  of  min- 
isters dared  to  say  to  their  faces,  that  they  did  not 
preach  the  Covenant  of  Free  Grace,  and  that  they 
themselves  had  not  the  scale  of  the  Spirit.  .  .  .  Now, 
after  our  sermons  were  ended  at  our  publike  lectures, 
you  might  have  seene  halfe  a  dozen  pistols  discharged 
1  Welde's  Short  Story,  Pref.  §§  7-11. 


224  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

at  the  face  of  the  preacher  (I  meane)  so  many  objec- 
tions made  by  the  opinionists  in  the  open  assembly 
against  our  doctrine  ...  to  the  marvellous  weaken- 
ing of  holy  truths  delivered  ...  in  the  hearts  of  all 
the  weaker  sort."  l 

John  Wheelwright  was  a  man  whose  character  ex- 
torts our  admiration,  if  it  does  not  win  our  love.  The 
personal  friend  of  Cromwell  and  .of  Vane,  with  a  mind 
vigorous  and  masculine,  and  a  courage  stern  and  de- 
termined even  above  the  Puritan  standard  of  resolu- 
tion and  of  daring,  he  spoke  the  truth  which  was  within 
him,  and  could  neither  be  intimidated  nor  cajoled. 
In  October  an  attempt  had  been  made  to  have  him 
settled  as  a  teacher  of  the  Boston  church  in  conjunc- 
tion with  Wilson  and  Cotton,  but  it  had  miscarried 
through  Winthrop's  opposition,  and  he  had  afterward 
taken  charge  of  a  congregation  that  had  been  gathered 
at  Mount  Wollaston,  in  what  is  now  Quincy. 

On  the  19th  of  January  a  fast  was  held  on  account 
of  the  public  dissensions,  and  on  that  day  Wheel- 
wright preached  a  great  sermon  in  Boston  which  brought 
on  the  crisis.  He  was  afterward  accused  of  sedition : 
the  charge  was  false,  for  he  did  not  utter  one  se- 
ditious word  ;  but  he  did  that  which  was  harder  to 
forgive,  he  struck  at  what  he  deemed  the  wrong  with 
his  whole  might,  and  those  who  will  patiently  pore 
over  his  pages  until  they  see  the  fire  glowing  through 
his  rugged  sentences  will  feel  the  power  of  his  blow. 
And  what  he  told  his  hearers  was  in  substance  this: 
1  Welde's  Short  Story,  Pref.  §§  7-11. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  225 

It  maketh  no  matter  how  seemingly  holy  men  be  ac- 
cording to  the  law,  if  ...  they  are  such  as  trust  to 
their  own  righteousness  they  shall  die,  saith  the  Lord. 
Do  ye  not  after  their  works ;  for  they  say  and  do 
not.  They  make  broad  their  phylacteries  and  en- 
large the  borders  of  their  garments  ;  and  love  the  up- 
permost rooms  at  feasts,  and  the  chief  seats  in  the 
synagogues  ;  and  greetings  in  the  market  place  and  to 
be  called  of  men,  Rabbi,  Rabbi.  But  believe  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  ye  shall  be  saved,  for  being 
justified  by  faith  we  have  peace  with  God  through  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  And  the  way  we  must  take  if  so 
be  we  will  not  have  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  taken  from 
us  is  this,  we  must  all  prepare  a  spiritual  combat,  we 
must  put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God,  and  must  have 
our  loins  girt  up  and  be  ready  to  fight,  .  .  .  because 
of  fear  in  the  night  if  we  will  not  fight  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  may  come  to  be  surprised. 

And  when  his  brethren  heard  it  they  sought  how 
they  might  destroy  him  ;  for  they  feared  him,  because 
all  the  people  were  astonished  at  his  doctrine. 

In  March  the  legislature  met,  and  Wheelwright  was 
arraigned  before  a  court  composed,  according  to  the  ac- 
count of  the  Quaker  Groom,  of  Henry  Vane,  "  twelve 
magistrates,  twelve  priests,  &  thirty-three  deputies."  1 
His  sermon  was  produced,  and  an  attempt  was  made 
to  obtain  an  admission  that  by  those  under  a  covenant 
of  works  he  meant  his  brethren.  But  the  accused 
was  one  whom  it  was  hard  to  entrap  and  impossible 
1  Groom's  Glass  for  New  England,  p.  6. 


226  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

to  frighten.  He  defied  his  judges  to  controvert  his 
doctrine,  offering  to  prove  it  by  the  Scriptures,  and 
as  for  the  application  he  answered  that  "  if  he  were 
shown  any  that  walked  in  such  a  way  as  he  had 
described  to  be  a  covenant  of  works,  them  did  he 
mean."  1  Then  the  rest  of  the  elders  were  asked  if 
they  "  did  walk  in  such  a  way,  and  they  all  acknowl- 
edged they  did,"  2  excepting  John  Cotton,  who  declared 
that  "  brother  Wheelwright's  doctrine  was  according 
to  God  in  the  parts  controverted,  and  wholly  and  alto- 
gether/' 3  He  received  ecclesiastical  justice.  There 
was  no  jury,  and  the  popular  assembly  that  decided 
law  and  fact  by  a  partisan  vote  was  controlled  by  his 
adversaries.  Yet  even  so,  a  verdict  of  sedition  was 
such  a  flagrant  outrage  that  the  clergy  found  it  impos- 
sible to  command  prompt  obedience.  For  two  days 
the  issue  was  in  doubt,  but  at  length  "  the  priests  got 
two  of  the  magistrates  on  their  side,  and  so  got  the 
major  part  with  them."4  They  appear,  however,  to 
have  felt  too  weak  to  proceed  to  sentence,  for  the  pris- 
oner was  remanded  until  the  next  session. 

No  sooner  was  the  judgment  made  known  than  more 
than  sixty  of  the  most  respected  citizens  of  Boston 
signed  a  petition  to  the  court  in  Wheelwright's  behalf. 
In  respectful  and  even  submissive  language  they 
pointed  out  the  danger  of  meddling  with  the  right  of 

1  Wheelwright,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  p.  17,  note  27. 

2  Winthrop,  i.  215.     Wheelwright,  p.  18. 
8  Groom's  Glass  for  New  England,  p.  7. 

*  Felt's  Ecd.  Hist.  ii.  611. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  227 

free  speech.  "  Paul  was  counted  a  pestilent  fellow,  or 
a  moover  of  sedition,  and  a  ringleader  of  a  sect,  .  .  . 
and  Christ  himselfe,  as  well  as  Paul,  was  charged  to 
bee  a  teacher  of  New  Doctrine.  .  .  .  Now  wee  beseech 
you,  consider  whether  that  old  serpent  work  not  after 
his  old  method,  even  in  our  daies."  l 

The  charge  of  sedition  made  against  them  they  re- 
pudiated in  emphatic  words,  which  deserve  attention, 
as  they  were  afterwards  held  to  be  criminal. 

"  Thirdly,  if  you  look  at  the  effects  of  his  doctrine 
upon  the  hearers,  it  hath  not  stirred  up  sedition  in  us, 
not  so  much  as  by  accident ;  wee  have  not  drawn  the 
sword,  as  sometimes  Peter  did,  rashly,  neither  have  wee 
rescued  our  innocent  brother,  as  sometimes  the  Israel- 
ites did  Jonathan,  and  yet  they  did  not  seditiously. 
The  covenant  of  free  grace  held  forth  by  our  brother 
hath  taught  us  rather  to  become  humble  suppliants 
to  your  worships,  and  if  wee  should  not  prevaile,  wee 
would  rather  with  patience  give  our  cheekes  to  the 
smiters."  2 

The  liberal  feeling  ran  so  strongly  in  Boston  that 
the  conservatives  thought  it  prudent  to  remove  the 
government  temporarily  to  Cambridge,  that  they  might 
more  easily  control  the  election  which  was  to  come  in 
May.  Vane,  with  some  petulance,  refused  to  enter- 
tain the  motion ;  but  Endicott  put  the  question,  and  it 
was  carried.  As  the  time  drew  near  the  excitement 
increased,  the  clergy  straining  every  nerve  to  bring  up 

1  Wheelwright,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  p.  21. 

2  Idem. 


228  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

their  voters  from  the  country ;  and  on  the  morning  of 
the  day  the  feeling  was  so  intense  that  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Wilson,  forgetting  his  dignity  and  his  age,  scrambled 
up  a  tree  and  harangued  the  people  from  its  branches.1 

Yet,  though  the  freemen  were  so  deeply  moved, 
there  was  no  violence,  and  Winthrop  was  peaceably 
elected  governor,  with  a  strong  conservative  majority 
in  the  legislature.  It  so  happened  that  just  at  this 
time  a  number  of  the  friends  of  Wheelwright  and  the 
Hutchinsons  were  on  their  way  from  England  to  set- 
tle in  Massachusetts.  The  first  act  of  the  new  gov- 
ernment was  to  exclude  these  new-comers  by  passing 
a  law  forbidding  any  town  to  entertain  strangers  for 
more  than  three  weeks  without  the  consent  of  two  of 
the  magistrates. 

This  oppressive  statute  caused  such  discontent  that 
Winthrop  thought  it  necessary  to  publish  a  defence,  to 
which  Vane  replied  and  Winthrop  rejoined.  The  con- 
troversy would  long  since  have  lost  its  interest  had  it 
not  been  for  the  theory  then  first  advanced  by  Win- 
throp, that  the  corporation  of  Massachusetts,  having 
bought  its  land,  held  it  as  though  it  were  a  private 
estate,  and  might  exclude  whom  they  pleased  there- 
from ;  and  ever  since  this  plea  has  been  set  up  in  jus- 
tification of  every  excess  committed  by  the  theocracy. 

Winthrop  was  a  lawyer,  and  it  is  but  justice  to  his 
reputation  to  presume  that  he  spoke  as  a  partisan, 
knowing  his  argument  to  be  fallacious.  As  a  legal 
proposition  he  must  have  been  aware  that  it  was  un- 
sound. 

1  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  62,  note. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  229 

Although  during  the  reign  of  Charles  I.  monopolies 
were  a  standing  grievance  with  the  House  of  Commons, 
yet  they  had  been  granted  and  enforced  for  centuries; 
and  had  Massachusetts  claimed  the  right  to  exclude 
strangers  as  interlopers  in  trade,  she  would  have  stood 
upon  good  precedent.  Such,  however,  was  not  her  con- 
tention. The  legislation  against  the  friends  of  Wheel- 
wright was  passed  avowedly  upon  grounds  of  religious 
difference  of  opinion,  and  a  monopoly  in  religion  was 
unknown. 

Her  commercial  privileges  alone  were  exclusive,  and, 
provided  he  respected  them,  a  British  subject  had  the 
same  right  to  dwell  in  Massachusetts  as  in  any  of  the 
other  dominions  of  the  crown,  or,  indeed,  in  any  borough 
which  held  its  land  by  grant,  like  Plymouth.  To  sub- 
ject Englishmen  to  restriction  or  punishment  unknown 
to  English  law  was  as  outrageous  as  the  same  act 
would  have  been  had  it  been  perpetrated  by  the  city 
of  London,  —  both  corporations  having  a  like  power 
to  preserve  the  peace  by  local  ordinances,  and  both  be- 
ing controlled  by  the  law  of  the  land  as  administered 
by  the  courts.  Such  arguments  as  those  advanced  by 
Winthrop  were  only  solemn  quibbling  to  cloak  an 
indefensible  policy.  To  banish  freemen  for  demand- 
ing liberty  of  conscience  was  a  still  more  flagrant 
wrong.  A  precisely  parallel  case  would  have  been 
presented  had  the  directors  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany  declared  the  membership  of  a  proprietor  to  be 
forfeited,  and  ordered  his  stock  to  be  sold,  because 
he  disapproved  of  enforcing  conformity  in  worship 
among  inhabitants  of  the  factories  in  Hindostan. 


230  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

Vane  sailed  early  in  August,  and  his  departure 
cleared  the  last  barrier  from  the  way  of  vengeance. 
Proceedings  were  at  once  begun  by  a  synod  of  all  the 
ministers,  which  was  held  at  Cambridge,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  restoring  peace  to  the  churches.  "  There  were 
about  eighty  opinions,  some  blasphemous,  others  er- 
roneous, and  all  unsafe,  condemned  by  the  whole  as- 
sembly. .  .  .  Some  of  the  church  of  Boston  .  .  .  were 
offended  at  the  producing  of  so  many  errors,  .  .  . 
and  called  to  have  the  persons  named  which  held  those 
errors."  To  which  the  elders  answered  that  all  those 
opinions  could  be  proved  to  be  held  by  some,  but  it 
was  not  thought  fit  to  name  the  parties.  "  Yet  this 
would  not  satisfy  some  but  they  oft  called  for  wit- 
nesses ;  and  because  some  of  the  magistrates  declared 
to  them  .  .  .  that  if  they  would  not  forbear  it  would 
prove  a  civil  disturbance  .  .  .  they  objected.  ...  So 
as  he  "  (probably  meaning  Winthrop)  "  was  forced  to 
tell  one  of  them  that  if  he  would  not  forbear  ...  he 
might  see  it  executed.  Upon  this  some  of  Boston  de- 
parted from  the  assembly  and  came  no  more."  1  Once 
freed  from  their  repinings  all  went  well,  and  their 
pastor,  Mr.  Wilson,  soon  had  the  satisfaction  of  send- 
ing their  reputed  heresies  "  to  the  devil  of  hell  from 
whence  they  came."  2  Cotton,  seeing  that  all  was  lost, 
hastened  to  make  his  peace  by  a  submission  which  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Hubbard  of  Ipswich  describes  with  uncon- 
scious cynicism.  "•  If  he  were  not  convinced,  yet  he 

1  Winthrop,  i.  238. 

3  Magnolia,  bk.  3,  ch.  iii.  §  13. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  231 

was  persuaded  to  an  amicable  compliance  with  the 
other  ministers ;  .  .  .  for,  although  it  was  thought  he 
did  still  retain  his  own  sense  and  enjoy  his  own  appre- 
hension in  all  or  most  of  the  things  then  controverted 
(as  is  manifest  by  some  expressions  of  his  .  .  .  since 
that  time  published,"  .  .  .)  yet.  "  By  that  means  did 
that  reverend  and  worthy  minister  of  the  gospel  re- 
cover his  former  splendour  throughout  .  .  .  New  Eng- 
land." ! 

He  was  not  a  sensitive  man,  and  having  once  deter- 
mined to  do  penance,  he  was  far  too  astute  a  politician 
to  do  it  by  halves ;  he  not  only  gave  himself  up  to  the 
task  of  detecting  the  heterodoxy  of  his  old  friends,2 
but  on  a  day  of  solemn  fasting  he  publicly  professed 
repentance  with  many  tears,  and  told  how,  "  God  leav- 
ing him  for  a  time,  he  fell  into  a  spirituall  slumber ; 
and  had  it  not  been  for  the  watchfulnesse  of  his 
brethren,  the  elders,  &c.,  hee  might  have  slept  on, 
.  .  .  and  was  very  thankfull  to  his  brethren  for  their 
watchfulnesse  over  him."  3  Nor  to  the  end  of  his  life 
did  he  feel  quite  at  ease  ;  "  yea,  such  was  his  ingenuity 
and  piety  as  that  his  soul  was  not  satisfied  without 
often  breaking  forth  into  affectionate  bewailing  of  his 
infirmity  herein,  in  the  publick  assembly,  sometimes 
in  his  prayer,  sometimes  in  his  sermon,  and  that  with 
tears."  4 

Wheelwright  was  made  of  sterner  stuff,  and  was  in. 

1  Hubbard,  p.  302.  2  Winthrop,  i.  253. 

8  Hypocrisie  Unmasked ',  p.  76. 
4  Norton's  Funeral  Sermon,  p.  37. 


232  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

flexible.  In  fact,  however,  the  difference  of  dogma,  if 
any  existed,  was  trivial  The  clergy  used  the  cry  of 
heresy  to  excite  odium,  just  as  they  called  their  oppo- 
nents Antinomians,  or  dangerous  fanatics.  To  support 
these  accusations  the  synod  gravely  accepted  every  un- 
savory inference  which  ingenuity  could  wring  from  the 
tenets  of  their  adversaries ;  and  these,  together  with  the 
fables  invented  by  idle  gossip,  made  up  the  long  list 
of  errors  they  condemned.  Though  the  scheme  was 
unprincipled,  it  met  with  complete  success,  and  the 
Antinomians  have  come  down  to  posterity  branded  as 
deadly  enemies  of  Christ  and  the  commonwealth;  yet 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  they  were  not  only 
good  citizens,  but  substantially  orthodox.  On  such  a 
point  there  is  no  one  among  the  conservatives  whose 
testimony  has  the  weight  of  Winthrop's,  who  says : 
*'  Mr.  Cotton  .  .  .  stated  the  differences  in  a  very  nar- 
row scantling;  and  Mr.  Shepherd,  preaching  at  the 
day  of  election,  brought  them  yet  nearer,  so  as,  except 
men  of  good  understanding,  and  such  as  knew  the 
bottom  of  the  tenents  of  those  of  the  other  party,  few 
could  see  where  the  difference  was."  l  While  Cotton 
himself  complains  bitterly  of  the  falsehoods  spread 
about  him  and  his  friends :  "  But  when  some  of  ... 
the  elders  of  neighbour  churches  advertised  me  of  the 
evill  report  ...  I  ...  dealt  with  Mrs.  Hutchinson  and 
others  of  them,  declaring  to  them  the  erroneousnesse 
of  those  tenents,  and  the  injury  done  to  myself  in  fa- 
thering them  upon  mee.  Both  shee  and  they  utterly 
1  Winthrop,  i.  221. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  233 

denyed  that  they  held  such  tenants,  or  that  they  had 
fathered  them  upon  mee.  I  returned  their  answer  to 
the  elders.  .  .  .  They  answered  me  they  had  but  one 
witnesse,  .  .  .  and  that  one  loth  to  be  known."  .  .  -1 
Moreover,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  notwithstanding 
the  advantage  it  would  have  given  the  reactionists  to 
have  been  able  to  fix  subversive  opinions  upon  their 
prominent  opponents,  it  was  found  impossible  to  prove 
heresy  in  a  single  case  which  was  brought  to  trial.  The 
legislature  chosen  in  May  was  apparently  unfit  for  the 
work  now  to  be  done,  for  the  extraordinary  step  of  a 
dissolution  was  decided  on,  and  a  new  election  held,  un- 
der circumstances  in  which  it  was  easy  to  secure  the 
return  of  suitable  candidates.  The  session  opened  on 
November  2,  and  Wheelwright  was  summoned  to  ap- 
pear. He  was  ordered  to  submit,  or  prepare  for  sen- 
tence. He  replied  that  he  was  guilty  of  neither  sedition 
nor  contempt ;  that  he  had  preached  only  the  truth  of 
Christ,  the  application  of  which  was  for  others,  not 
for  him.  "To  which  it  was  answered  by  the  court 
that  they  had  not  censured  his  doctrine,  but  left  it  as 
it  was ;  but  his  application,  by  which  hee  laid  the  mag- 
istrates and  ministers  and  most  of  the  people  of  God 
in  these  churches  under  a  covenant  of  works."  2  The 
prisoner  was  then  sentenced  to  be  disfranchised  and 
banished.  He  demanded  an  appeal  to  the  king;  it 
was  refused  ;  and  he  was  given  fourteen  days  to  leave 
Massachusetts.  So  he  went  forth  alone  in  the  bit- 

1  Cotton,  Way  of  New  England  Churches,  pp.  39,  40. 

2  Short  Story,  p.  24. 


234  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

ter  winter  weather  and  journeyed  to  the  Piscataqua, 
—  yet  "it  was  marvellous  he  got  thither  at  that 
time,  when  they  expelled  him,  by  reason  of  the  deep 
snow  in  which  he  might  have  perished."1  Nor  was 
banishment  by  any  means  the  trivial  penalty  it  has 
been  described.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  a  punish- 
ment of  the  utmost  rigor.  The  exiles  were  forced  sud- 
denly to  dispose  of  their  property,  which,  in  those 
times,  was  mostly  in  houses  and  land,  and  go  forth 
among  the  savages  with  helpless  women  and  children. 
Such  an  ordeal  might  well  appall  even  a  brave  man; 
but  Wheelwright  was  sacrificing  his  intellectual  life. 
He  was  leaving  books,  friends,  and  the  mental  activ- 
ity, which  made  the  world  to  him,  to  settle  in  the 
forests  among  backwoodsmen  ;  and  yet  even  in  this 
desolate  solitude  the  theocracy  continued  to  pursue 
him  with  persevering  hate. 

But  there  were  others  beside  Wheelwright  who  had 
sinned,  and  some  pretext  had  to  be  devised  by  which 
to  reach  them.  The  names  of  most  of  his  friends 
were  upon  the  petition  that  had  been  drawn  up  after 
his  trial.  It  is  true  it  was  a  proceeding  with  which 
the  existing  legislature  was  not  concerned,  since  it  had 
been  presented  to  one  of  its  predecessors ;  it  is  also 
true  that  probably  never,  before  or  since,  have  men 
who  have  protested  they  have  not  drawn  the  sword 
rashly,  but  have  come  as  humble  suppliants  to  offer 
their  cheeks  to  the  smiters,  been  held  to  be  public 
enemies.  Such  scruples,  however,  never  hampered 

1  Wheelwright,  Prince  Soc.  ed.     Mercurius  Americanus,  p.  24 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  235 

the  theocracy.  Their  justice  was  trammelled  neither 
by  judges,  by  juries,  nor  by  laws ;  the  petition  was 
declared  to  be  a  seditious  libel,  and  the  petitioners 
were  given  their  choice  of  disavowing  their  act  and 
making  humble  submission,  or  exile. 

Aspinwall  was  at  once  disfranchised  and  banished.1 
Coddington,  Coggeshall,  and  nine  more  were  given 
leave  to  depart  within  three  months,  or  abide  the 
action  of  the  court;  others  were  disfranchised;  and 
fifty-eight  of  the  less  prominent  of  the  party  were 
disarmed  in  Boston  alone.2 

Thus  were  the  early  liberals  crushed  in  Massachu- 
setts ;  the  bold  were  exiled,  the  timid  were  terrified  ; 
as  a  political  organization  they  moved  no  more  till  the 
theocracy  was  tottering  to  its  fall ;  and  for  forty  years 
the  power  of  the  clergy  was  absolute  in  the  land. 

The  fate  of  Anne  Hutchinson  makes  a  fit  ending  to 
this  sad  tale  of  oppression  and  of  wrong.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1637,  when  her  friends  were  crushed,  and  the  tri- 
umphant priests  felt  that  their  victim's  doom  was  sure, 
she  was  brought  to  trial  before  that  ghastliest  den  of 
human  iniquity,  an  ecclesiastical  criminal  court.  The 
ministers  were  her  accusers,  who  came  burning  with 
hate  to  testify  to  the  words  she  had  spoken  to  them  at 
their  own  request,  in  the  belief  that  the  confidence  she 
reposed  was  to  be  held  sacred.  She  had  no  jury  to 
whose  manhood  she  could  appeal,  and  John  Winthrop, 
to  his  lasting  shame,  was  to  prosecute  her  from  the 
judgment  seat.  She  was  soon  to  become  a  mother, 
i  Mass.  Rec.  i.  207.  a  Idem,  i.  223. 


236  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

and  her  health  was  feeble,  but  she  was  made  to  stand 
till  she  was  exhausted ;  and  yet,  abandoned  and  for- 
lorn, before  those  merciless  judges,  through  two  long, 
weary  days  of  hunger  and  of  cold,  the  intrepid  woman 
defended  her  cause  with  a  skill  and  courage  which  even 
now,  after  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  kindles  the 
heart  with  admiration.  The  case  for  the  government 
was  opened  by  John  Winthrop,  the  presiding  justice, 
the  attorney  -  general,  the  foreman  of  the  jury,  and 
the  chief  magistrate  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  He  up- 
braided the  prisoner  with  her  many  evil  courses,  with 
having  spoken  things  prejudicial  to  the  honor  of  the 
ministers,  with  holding  an  assembly  in  her  house,  and 
with  divulging  the  opinions  held  by  those  who  had 
been  censured  by  that  court ;  closing  in  these  words, 
which  sound  strangely  in  the  mouth  of  a  New  England 
judge : — 

We  have  thought  good  to  send  for  you  .  .  .  that 
if  you  be  in  an  erroneous  way  we  may  reduce  you 
that  so  you  may  become  a  profitable  member  here 
among  us,  otherwise  if  you  be  obstinate  .  .  .  that  then 
the  court  may  take  such  course  that  you  may  trouble 
us  no  further,  therefore  I  would  entreat  you  .  .  . 
whether  you  do  not  justify  Mr.  Wheelwright's  sermon 
and  the  petition. 

Mrs.  H.  I  am  called  here  to  answer  before  you, 
but  I  hear  no  things  laid  to  my  charge. 

Gov.  I  have  told  you  some  already,  and  more  1 
can  tell  you. 

Mrs.  H.     Name  one,  sir. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  237 

Gov.     Have  I  not  named  some  already  ? 

Mrs.  II.     What  have  I  said  or  done  ?  .  .  . 

Gov.     You  have  joined  with  them  in  the  faction. 

Mrs.  H.     In  what  faction  have  I  joined  with  them  ? 

Gov.     In  presenting  the  petition.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  H.     But  I  had  not  my  hand  to  the  petition. 

Gov.     You  have  counselled  them. 

Mrs.  H.     Wherein? 

Gov.     Why,  in  entertaining  them. 

Mrs.  H.     What  breach  of  law  is  that,  sir? 

Gov.     Why,  dishonoring  of  parents.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  H.  I  may  put  honor  upon  them  as  the  chil- 
dren of  God  and  as  they  do  honor  the  Lord. 

Gov.  We  do  not  mean  to  discourse  with  those  of 
your  sex  but  only  this  ;  you  do  adhere  unto  them,  and 
do  endeavor  to  set  forward  this  faction,  and  so  you  do 
dishonor  us. 

Mrs.  H.  I  do  acknowledge  no  such  thing,  neither 
do  I  think  that  I  ever  put  any  dishonor  upon  you. 

And,  on  the  whole,  the  chief  justice  broke  down 
so  hopelessly  in  his  examination,  that  the  deputy 
governor,  or  his  senior  associate  upon  the  bench, 
thought  it  necessary  to  interfere. 

Dep.  Gov.  I  would  go  a  little  higher  with  Mrs. 
Hutchinson.  Now  ...  if  she  in  particular  hath  dis- 
paraged all  our  ministers  in  the  land  that  they  have 
preached  a  covenant  of  works,  and  only  Mr.  Cotton  a 
covenant  of  grace,  why  this  is  not  to  be  suffered.  .  . 


238  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

Mrs.  H.  I  pray,  sir,  prove  it,  that  I  said  they 
preached  nothing  but  a  covenant  of  works.  .  .  . 

Dep.  Gov.  If  they  do  not  preach  a  covenant  of 
grace,  clearly,  then,  they  preach  a  covenant  of  works. 

Mrs.  H.  No,  sir,  one  may  preach  a  covenant  of 
grace  more  clearly  than  another,  so  I  said. 

Dudley  was  faring  worse  than  Winthrop,  and  the 
divines,  who  had  been  bursting  with  impatience,  could 
hold  no  longer.  The  Rev.  Hugh  Peters  broke  in  : 
"  That  which  concerns  us  to  speak  unto,  as  yet  we  are 
sparing  in,  unless  the  court  command  us  to  speak, 
then  we  shall  answer  to  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  notwith- 
standing our  brethren  are  very  unwilling  to  answer." 
And  without  further  urging,  that  meek  servant  of 
Christ  went  on  to  tell  how  he  and  others  had  heard 
that  the  prisoner  said  they  taught  a  covenant  of  works, 
how  they  had  sent  for  her,  and  though  she  was 
"  very  tender  "  at  first,  yet  upon  being  begged  to  speak 
plainly,  she  had  explained  that  there  "was  a  broad 
difference  between  our  Brother  Mr.  Cotton  and  our- 
selves. I  desired  to  know  the  difference.  She  an- 
swered '  that  he  preaches  the  covenant  of  grace  and 
you  the  covenant  of  works,  and  that  you  are  not  able 
ministers  of  the  New  Testament,  and  know  no  more 
than  the  apostles  did  before  the  resurrection.' "... 

Mrs.  H.  If  our  pastor  would  shew  his  writings 
you  should  see  what  I  said,  and  that  many  things  are 
not  so  as  is  reported. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  239 

Mr.  Wilson.  Sister  Hutchinson,  for  the  writings 
you  speak  of  I  have  them  not.  .  .  . 

Five  more  divines  followed,  who,  though  they  were 
"  loth  to  speak  in  that  assembly  concerning  that  gentle- 
woman," yet  to  ease  their  consciences  in  "  the  relation 
wherein  "  they  stood  "  to  the  Commonwealth  and  .  .  . 
unto  God,"  felt  constrained  to  state  that  the  prisoner 
had  said  they  were  not  able  ministers  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  that  the  whole  of  the  evidence  of 
Hugh  Peters  was  true,  and  in  so  doing  they  came  to 
an  issue  of  veracity  with  Cotton. 

An  adjournment  soon  followed  till  next  day,  and 
the  presiding  justice  seems  to  have  considered  his  case 
against  his  prisoner  as  closed. 

In  the  morning  Mrs.  Hutchinson  opened  her  defence 
by  calling  three  witnesses,  Leverett,  Coggeshall,  and 
John  Cotton. 

Gov.     Mr.  Coggeshall  was  not  present. 

Mr.  C.  Yes,  but  I  was,  only  I  desired  to  be  silent 
till  I  should  be  called. 

Gov.     Will  you  .  .  .  say  that  she  did  not  say  so? 

Mr.  C.  Yes,  I  dare  say  that  she  did  not  say  all 
that  which  they  lay  against  her. 

Mr.  Peters.  How  dare  you  look  into  the  court  to 
say  such  a  word  ? 

Mr.  C.  Mr.  Peters  takes  upon  him  to  forbid  me. 
I  shall  be  silent.  .  .  . 

Gov.  Well,  Mr.  Leverett,  what  were  the  words? 
I  pray  speak. 


240  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

Mr.  L.  To  my  best  remembrance  .  .  .  Mr.  Peters 
did  with  much  vehemency  and  entreaty  urge  her  to 
tell  what  difference  there  was  between  Mr.  Cotton  and 
them,  and  upon  his  urging  of  her  she  said :  "  The  fear 
of  man  is  a  snare,  but  they  that  trust  upon  the  Lord 
shall  be  safe."  And  .  .  .  that  they  did  not  preach 
a  covenant  of  grace  so  clearly  as  Mr.  Cotton  did,  and 
she  gave  this  reason  of  it,  because  that  as  the  apostles 
were  for  a  time  without  the  Spirit  so  until  they  had 
received  the  witness  of  the  Spirit  they  could  not  preach 
a  covenant  of  grace  so  clearly. 

The  Rev.  John  Cotton  was  then  called.  He  was 
much  embarrassed  in  giving  his  evidence,  but,  if  he  is 
to  be  believed,  his  brethren,  in  their  anxiety  to  make 
out  a  case,  had  colored  material  facts.  He  closed  his 
account  of  the  interview  in  these  words :  "  I  must  say 
that  I  did  not  find  her  saying  they  were  under  a  cov- 
enant of  works,  nor  that  she  said  they  did  preach 
a  covenant  of  works." 

Gov.  You  say  you  do  not  remember,  but  can  you 
say  she  did  not  speak  so? 

Mr.  C.  I  do  remember  that  she  looked  at  them  as 
the  apostles  before  the  ascension.  .  .  . 

Dep.  Gov.  They  affirm  that  Mrs.  Hutchinson  did 
say  they  were  not  able  ministers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

Mr.  0.     I  do  not  remember  it. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  241 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  had  shattered  the  case  of  the  gov- 
ernment in  a  style  worthy  of  a  leader  of  the  bar,  but 
she  now  ventured  on  a  step  for  which  she  has  been 
generally  condemned.  She  herself  approached  the 
subject  of  her  revelations.  To  criticise  the  introduc- 
tion of  evidence  is  always  simpler  than  to  conduct  a 
cause,  but  an  analysis  of  her  position  tends  to  show 
not  only  that  her  course  was  the  result  of  mature 
reflection,  but  that  her  judgment  was  in  this  instance 
correct.  She  probably  assumed  that  when  the  more 
easily  proved  charges  had  broken  down  she  would  be 
attacked  here  ;  and  in  this  assumption  she  was  un- 
doubtedly right.  The  alternative  presented  to  her, 
therefore,  was  to  go  on  herself,  or  wait  for  Winthrop 
to  move.  If  she  waited  she  knew  she  should  give  the 
government  the  advantage  of  choosing  the  ground, 
and  she  would  thus  be  subjected  to  the  danger  of  hav- 
ing fatal  charges  proved  against  her  by  hearsay  or 
distorted  evidence.  If  she  took  the  bolder  course,  she 
could  explain  her  revelations  as  monitions  coming  to 
her  through  texts  in  Scripture,  and  here  she  was  cer- 
tain of  Cotton's  support.  Before  that  tribunal  she 
could  hardly  have  hoped  for  an  acquittal ;  but  if  any- 
thing could  have  saved  her  it  would  have  been  the 
sanction  given  to  her  doctrines  by  the  approval  of 
John  Cotton.  At  all  events,  she  saw  the  danger,  for 
she  closed  her  little  speech  in  these  touching  words : 
"Now  if  you  do  condemn  me  for  speaking  what  in 
my  conscience  I  know  to  be  truth,  I  must  commit  my- 
self unto  the  Lord." 


242  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

Mr.  Nowell.  How  do  you  know  that  that  was  the 
Spirit  ? 

Mrs.  H.  How  did  Abraham  know  that  it  was 
God?  .  .  . 

Dep.  Gov.     By  an  immediate  voice. 

Mrs.  H.     So  to  me  by  an  immediate  revelation. 

Then  she  proceeded  to  state  how,  through  various 
texts  which  she  cited,  the  Lord  showed  her  what  He 
would  do;  and  she  particularly  dwelt  on  one  from 
Daniel.  So  far  all  was  well ;  she  had  planted  herself 
on  ground  upon  which  orthodox  opinion  was  at  least 
divided ;  but  she  now  committed  the  one  grave  error 
of  her  long  and  able  defence.  As  she  went  on  her 
excitement  gained  upon  her,  and  she  ended  by  some- 
thing like  a  defiance  and  denunciation :  "  You  have 
power  over  my  body,  but  the  Lord  Jesus  hath  power 
over  my  body  and  soul ;  and  assure  yourselves  thus 
much,  you  do  as  much  as  in  you  lies  to  put  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  from  you,  and  if  you  go  on  in  this  course 
you  begin,  you  will  bring  a  curse  upon  you  and  your 
posterity,  and  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it." 

Gov.  Daniel  was  delivered  by  miracle.  Do  you 
think  to  be  delivered  so  too  ? 

Mrs.  H.  I  do  here  speak  it  before  the  court.  I 
look  that  the  Lord  should  deliver  me  by  his  provi- 
dence. .  .  . 

Dep.  Gov.  I  desire  Mr.  Cotton  to  tell  us  whether 
you  do  approve  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  revelations  as 
she  hath  laid  them  down. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  243 

Mr.  C.  I  know  not  whether  I  do  understand  her, 
but  this  I  say,  if  she  doth  expect  a  deliverance  in  a 
way  of  providence,  then  I  cannot  deny  it. 

Gov.  ...  I  see  a  marvellous  providence  of  God 
to  bring  things  to  this  pass.  .  .  .  God  by  a  providence 
hath  answered  our  desires,  and  made  her  to  lay  open 
herself  and  the  ground  of  all  these  disturbances  to  be 
by  revelations.  .  .  . 

Court.     We  all  consent  with  you. 

Gov.  Ey,  it  is  the  most  desperate  enthusiasm  in 
the  world.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Endicott.  I  speak  in  reference  to  Mr.  Cotton. 
.  .  .  Whether  do  you  witness  for  her  or  against  her. 

Mr.  C.  This  is  that  I  said,  sir,  and  my  answer  is 
plain,  that  if  she  doth  look  for  deliverance  from  the 
hand  of  God  by  his  providence,  and  the  revelation  be 
.  .  .  according  to  a  word  [of  Scripture]  that  I  cannot 
deny. 

Mr.  Endicott.     You  give  me  satisfaction. 

Dep.  Gov.     No,  no,  he  gives  me  none  at  all.  .  .  . 

Mr.  C.  I  pray,  sir,  give  me  leave  to  express  my- 
self. In  that  sense  that  she  speaks  I  dare  not  bear 
witness  against  it. 

Mr.  Nowell.    I  think  it  is  a  devilish  delusion. 

Gov.  Of  all  the  revelations  that  ever  I  read  of  I 
never  read  the  like  ground  laid  as  is  for  this.  The 
enthusiasts  and  Anabaptists  had  never  the  like.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Peters.  I  can  say  the  same  .  .  .  and  I  think 
that  is  very  disputable  which  our  brother  Cotton  hath 
spoken.  .  .  . 


244  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

Gov.  I  am  persuaded  that  the  revelation  she  brings 
forth  is  delusion. 

All  the  court  but  some  two  or  three  ministers  cry 
out,  We  all  believe  it,  we  all  believe  it.  ... 

And  then  Coddington  stood  up  before  that  angry 
meeting  like  the  brave  man  he  was,  and  said, "  I  be- 
seech you  do  not  speak  so  to  force  things  along,  for 
I  do  not  for  my  own  part  see  any  equity  in  the  court 
in  all  your  proceedings.  Here  is  no  law  of  God  that 
she  hath  broken,  nor  any  law  of  the  country  that  she 
hath  broke,  and  therefore  deserves  no  censure  ;  and  if 
she  say  that  the  elders  preach  as  the  apostles  did,  why 
they  preached  a  covenant  of  grace  and  what  wrong  is 
that  to  them,  .  .  .  therefore  I  pray  consider,  what  you 
do,  for  here  is  no  law  of  God  or  man  broken." 

Mr.  Peters.  I  profess  I  thought  Mr.  Cotton  would 
never  have  took  her  part. 

Gov.  The  court  hath  already  declared  themselves 
satisfied  .  .  .  concerning  the  troublesomeness  of  her 
spirit  and  the  danger  of  her  course  amongst  us  which 
is  not  to  be  suffered.  Therefore  if  it  be  the  mind  of 
the  court  that  Mrs.  Hutchinson  .  .  .  shall  be  banished 
out  of  our  liberties  and  imprisoned  till  she  be  sent 
away  let  them  hold  up  their  hands. 

All  but  three  consented. 

Those  contrary  minded  hold  up  yours.  Mr.  Cod- 
dington and  Colburn  only. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  245 

Gov.  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  the  sentence  of  the  court 
you  hear  is  that  you  are  banished  from  out  of  our 
jurisdiction  as  being  a  woman  not  fit  for  our  society, 
and  are  to  be  imprisoned  till  the  court  shall  send 
you  away. 

Mrs.  H.  I  desire  to  know  wherefore  I  am  ban- 
ished. 

Gov.  Say  no  more,  the  court  knows  wherefore  and 
is  satisfied.1 

With  refined  malice  she  was  committed  to  the  cus- 
tody of  Joseph  Welde  of  Roxbury,  the  brother  of  the 
Rev.  Thomas  Welde  who  thought  her  a  Jezebel. 
Here  "  divers  of  the  elders  resorted  to  her,"  and  un- 
der this  daily  torment  rapid  progress  was  made. 
Probably  during  that  terrible  interval  her  reason  was 
tottering,  for  her  talk  came  to  resemble  ravings.2 
When  this  point  was  reached  the  divines  saw  their 
object  attained,  and  that  "  with  sad  hearts  "  they  could 
give  her  up  to  Satan.2  Accordingly  they  "  wrote  to 
the  church  at  Boston,  offering  to  make  proof  of  the 
same,"  whereupon  she  was  summoned  and  the  lecture 
appointed  to  begin  at  ten  o'clock.3 

"  When  she  was  come  one  of  the  ruling  elders 
called  her  forth  before  the  assembly,"  and  read  to 
her  the  twenty-nine  errors  of  which  she  was  accused, 
all  of  which  she  admitted  she  had  maintained.  "  Then 
she  asked  by  what  rule  such  an  elder  would  come  to 

1  Hutch.  Hist.  vol.  ii.  App.  2.  2  Brief  Apoloffie,  p.  59. 

«  Winthrop,  i.  254. 


246  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

her  pretending  to  desire  light  and  indeede  to  entrappe 
her."  He  answered  that  he  came  not  to  "  entrap  her 
but  in  compassion  to  her  soule.  .  .  ." 

"Then  presently  she  grew  into  passion  .  .  .  pro- 
fessing withall  that  she  held  none  of  these  things 
.  .  .  before  her  imprisonment."  l 

The  court  sat  till  eight  at  night,  when  "  Mr.  Cot- 
ton pronounced  the  sentence  of  admonition  .  .  .  with 
much  zeal  and  detestation  of  her  errors  and  pride  of 
spirit."  2  An  adjournment  was  then  agreed  on  for  a 
week  and  she  was  ordered  to  return  to  Roxbury  ;  but 
this  was  more  than  she  could  bear,  and  her  distress 
was  such  that  the  congregation  seem  to  have  felt  some 
touch  of  compassion,  for  she  was  committed  to  the 
charge  of  Cotton  till  the  next  lecture  day,  when  the 
trial  was  to  be  resumed.3  At  his  house  her  mind  re- 
covered its  tone  and  when  she  again  appeared  she  not 
only  retracted  the  wild  opinions  she  had  broached 
while  at  Joseph  Welde's,  but  admitted  "  that  what  she 
had  spoken  against  the  magistrates  at  the  court  (by 
way  of  revelation)  was  rash  and  ungrounded."  4 

But  nothing  could  avail  her.  She  was  in  the  hands 
o*  men  determined  to  make  her  expiation  of  her 
crimes  a  by-word  of  terror  ;  her  fate  was  sealed.  The 
doctrines  she  now  professed  were  less  objectionable, 
so  she  was  examined  as  to  former  errors,  among  others 
"  that  she  had  denied  inherent  righteousness  ; "  she 
"  affirmed  that  it  was  never  her  judgment ;  and  though 

1  Brief  ApoL  pp.  59-61.  a  Winthrop,  i.  266. 

»  Brief  ApoL  p.  62.  4  Winthrop,  L  258. 


THE  ANTINOMIANS.  247 

it  was  proved  by  many  testimonies  .  .  .  yet  she  im- 
pudently persisted  in  her  affirmation  to  the  astonish- 
ment of  all  the  assembly.  So  that  .  .  .  the  church 
with  one  consent  cast  her  out.  .  .  .  After  she  was  ex- 
communicated her  spirit,  which  seemed  before  to  be 
somewhat  dejected,  revived  again  and  she  gloried  in 
her  sufferings." l  And  all  this  time  she  had  been 
alone  ;  her  friends  were  far  away. 

That  no  circumstances  of  horror  might  be  lost,  she 
and  one  of  her  most  devoted  followers,  Mary  Dyer, 
were  nearing  their  confinements  during  this  time  of 
misery.  Both  cases  ended  in  misfortunes  over  whose 
sickening  details  Thomas  Welde  and  his  reverend 
brethren  gloated  with  a  savage  joy,  declaring  that 
"  God  hiinselfe  was  pleased  to  step  in  with  his  casting 
vote  ...  as  clearly  as  if  he  had  pointed  with  his 
finger."  2  Let  posterity  draw  a  veil  over  the  shocking 
scene. 

Two  or  three  days  after  her  condemnation  "  the  gov- 
ernor sent  [her]  a  warrant  ...  to  depart  .  .  .  she 
went  by  water  to  her  farm  at  the  Mount  .  .  .  and  so 
to  the  island  in  the  Narragansett  Bay  which  her  hus- 
band and  the  rest  of  that  sect  had  purchased  of  the 
Indians."  3 

This  pure  and  noble  but  most  unhappy  woman  had 
sinned  against  the  clergy,  past  forgiveness  here  or  here- 
after. They  gibbeted  her  as  Jezebel,  and  her  name 
became  a  reproach  in  Massachusetts  through  two 

1  Winthrop,  i.  258.  2  short  Story,  Preface,  §  5. 

8  Winthrop,  i.  259. 


248  THE  ANTINOMIANS. 

hundred  years.  But  her  crimes  and  the  awful  end- 
ing of  her  life  are  best  read  in  the  Christian  words 
of  the  Rev.  Thomas  Welde,  whose  gentle  spirit  so 
adorned  his  holy  office. 

"  For  the  servants  of  God  who  came  over  into  New 
England  .  .  .  seeing  their  ministery  was  a  most  pre- 
cious sweete  savour  to  all  the  saints  before  she  came 
hither,  it  is  easie  to  discerne  from  what  sinke  that  ill 
vapour  hath  risen  which  hath  made  so  many  of  her 
seduced  party  to  loath  now  the  smell  of  those  flowers 
which  they  were  wont  to  find  sweetnesse  in.1  .  .  . 
The  Indians  set  upon  them,  and  slew  her  and  all  the 
family.2  .  .  .  Some  write  that  the  Indians  did  burne 
her  to  death  with  fire,  her  house  and  all  the  rest 
named  that  belonged  to  her ;  but  I  am  not  able  to 
affirme  by  what  kind  of  death  they  slew  her,  but  slaine 
it  seemes  she  is,  according  to  all  reports.  I  never  heard 
that  the  Indians  in  those  parts  did  ever  before  this, 
commit  the  like  outrage  .  .  .  ;  and  therefore  God's 
hand  is  the  more  apparently  scene  herein,  to  pick  out 
this  wofull  woman,  to  make  her  and  those  belonging 
to  her,  an  unheard  of  heavie  example  of  their  cruelty 
above  al  others."  3 

1  Short  Story,  p.  40. 

2  Mrs.  Hutchinson  and  her  family  were  killed  in  a  general 
massacre  of  the  Dutch  and  English  by  the  Indians  on  Long  Isl- 
and.    Winthrop,  ii.  136. 

«  Short  Story,  Preface. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   CAMBRIDGE   PLATFORM. 

WITH  the  ruin  of  the  Antinomians,  opposition  to 
the  clergy  ceased  within  the  church  itself,  but  many 
causes  combined  to  prevent  the  bulk  of  the  people 
from  participating  in  the  communion.  Of  those  who 
were  excluded,  perhaps  even  the  majority  might  have 
found  it  impossible  to  have  secured  their  pastor's  ap- 
probation, but  numbers  who  would  have  been  gladly 
received  were  restrained  by  conscientious  scruples ; 
and  more  shrank  from  undergoing  the  ordeal  to  which 
they  would  have  been  obliged  to  submit.  It  was  no 
light  matter  for  a  pious  but  a  sincerely  honest  man  to 
profess  his  conversion,  and  how  God  had  been  pleased 
to  work  "  in  the  inward  parts  of  his  soul,"  when  he 
was  not  absolutely  certain  that  he  had  indeed  been 
visited  by  the  Spirit.  And  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  to  sensitive  natures  the  initiation  was  appalling. 
The  applicant  had  first  to  convince  the  minister  of  his 
worthiness,  then  his  name  was  openly  propounded,  and 
those  who  knew  of  any  objection  to  his  character, 
either  moral  or  religious,  were  asked  to  give  notice  to 
the  presbytery  of  elders.  If  the  candidate  succeeded 
in  passing  this  private  examination  as  to  his  fitness 
the  following  scene  took  place  in  church  :  — 


250  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

"  The  party  appearing  in  the  midst  of  the  assembly 
.  .  .  the  ruling  elder  speaketh  in  this  manner :  Breth- 
ren of  this  congregation,  this  man  or  woman  .  .  .  hath 
beene  heretofore  propounded  to  you,  desiring  to  enter 
into  church  fellowship  with  us,  and  we  have  not  since 
that  heard  anything  from  any  of  you  to  the  contrary 
of  the  parties  admittance  but  that  we  may  goe  on  to 
receive  him :  therefore  now,  if  any  of  you  know  any- 
thing against  him,  why  he  may  not  be  admitted,  you 
may  yet  speak.  .  .  .  Whereupon,  sometimes  men  do 
speak  to  the  contrary  .  .  .  and  so  stay  the  party  for 
that  time  also  till  this  new  offence  be  heard  before 
the  elders,  so  that  sometimes  there  is  a  space  of  divers 
moneths  between  a  parties  first  propounding  and  re- 
ceiving, and  some  are  so  bashfull  as  that  they  choose 
rather  to  goe  without  the  communion  than  undergoe 
such  publique  confessions  and  tryals,  but  that  is  held 
their  fault."  1 

Those  who  were  thus  disfranchised,  Lechford,  who 
knew  what  he  was  talking  about,  goes  on  to  say,  soon 
began  to  complain  that  they  were  "  ruled  like  slaves ;  " 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  had  to  submit  to 
very  substantial  grievances.  The  administration  of 
justice  especially  seems  to  have  been  defective.  "  Now 
the  most  of  the  persons  at  New  England  are  not  ad- 
mitted of  their  church,  and  therefore  are  not  freemen, 
and  when  they  come  to  be  tryed  there,  be  it  for  life  or 
limb,  name  or  estate,  or  whatsoever,  they  must  bee  tryed 
and  judged  too  by  those  of  the  church,  who  are  in  a 
1  Lechford,  Plain  Dealing,  pp.  6,  7. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  251 

sort  their  adversaries :  how  equall  that  hath  been,  or 
may  be,  some  by  experience  doe  know,  others  may 
judge."  i 

The  government  was  in  fact  in  the  hands  of  a  small 
oligarchy  of  saints,2  who  were,  in  their  turn,  ruled  by 
their  priests,  and  as  the  repression  of  thought  inevita- 
ble under  such  a  system  had  roused  the  Antinomians, 
who  were  voters,  to  demand  a  larger  intellectual  free- 
dom, so  the  denial  of  ordinary  political  rights  to  the 
majority  led  to  discontent. 

Since  under  the  theocracy  there  was  no  department 
of  human  affairs  in  which  the  clergy  did  not  meddle, 
they  undertook  as  a  matter  of  course  to  interfere  with 
the  militia,  and  the  following  curious  letter  written  to 
the  magistrates  by  the  ministers  of  Rowley  shows  how 
far  they  carried  their  supervision  even  so  late  as  1689. 

ROWLEY,  July  24th,  1689. 
May  it  please  your  honors, 

The  occasion  of  these  lines  is  to  inform  you  that 
whereas  our  military  company  have  nominated  Abel 
Platts,  for  ensign,  we  conceive  that  it  is  our  duty  to 
declare  that  we  cannot  approve  of  their  choice  in  that 
he  is  corrupt  in  his  judgment  with  reference  to  the 
Lord's  Supper,  declaring  against  Christ's  words  of 
justification,  and  hereupon  hath  withdrawn  himself 
from  communion  with  the  church  in  that  holy  ordi- 
nance some  years,  besides  some  other  things  wherein 

1  Plain  Dealing,  p.  23. 

3  "  Three  parts  of  the  people  of  the  country  remaine  out  of 
the  church."  Plain  Dealing,  p.  73.  A.  D.  1642. 


252  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

he  hath  shown  no  little  vanity  in  his  conversation  and 
hath  demeaned  himself  unbecomingly  toward  the 
word  and  toward  the  dispensers  of  it.  ... 

SAMUEL  PHILLIPS. 

EDWARD 


A  somewhat  similar  difficulty,  which  happened  in 
Hingham  in  1645,  produced  very  serious  consequences. 
A  new  captain  had  been  chosen  for  their  company  ; 
but  a  dispute  having  arisen,  the  magistrates,  on  the 
question  being  submitted  to  them,  set  the  election  aside 
and  directed  the  old  officers  to  keep  their  places  until 
the  General  Court  should  meet.  Notwithstanding 
this  order  the  commotion  continued  to  increase,  and 
the  pastor,  Mr.  Peter  Hubbert,  "  was  very  forward  to 
have  excommunicated  the  lieutenant,"  who  was  the 
candidate  the  magistrates  favored.2  Winthrop  hap- 
pened to  be  deputy  governor  that  year,  and  the  ag- 
grieved officer  applied  to  him  for  protection  ;  where- 
upon, as  the  defendants  seemed  inclined  to  be  recal- 
citrant, several  were  committed  in  open  court,  among 
whom  were  three  of  Mr.  Hubbert's  brothers. 

Forthwith  the  clergyman  in  great  wrath  headed  a 
petition  to  which  he  obtained  a  large  number  of  sig- 
natures, in  which  he  prayed  the  General  Court  to  take 
cognizance  of  the  cause,  since  it  concerned  the  public 
liberty  and  the  liberty  of  the  church. 

At  its  next  session,  the  legislature  proceeded  to  ex- 
amine the  whole  case,  and  Winthrop  was  brought  to 

1  History  ofNewbury,  p.  80.  2  Winthrop,  ii.  222,  223. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  253 

trial  for  exceeding  his  jurisdiction  as  a  magistrate.  A 
contest  ensued  between  the  deputies  and  assistants, 
which  was  finally  decided  by  the  influence  of  the 
elders.  The  result  was  that  Winthrop  was  acquit- 
ted and  Mr.  Hubbert  and  the  chief  petitioners  were 
fined.1 

In  March  the  constable  went  to  Hingham  to  collect 
the  money,2  but  he  found  the  minister  indisposed  to 
submit  in  silence.  About  thirty  people  had  collected, 
and  before  them  all  Mr.  Hubbert  demanded  the  war- 
rant ;  when  it  was  produced  he  declared  it  worthless 
because  not  in  the  king's  name,  and  then  went  on  to 
add  that  the  government  "  was  not  more  then  a  cor- 
poration in  England,  and  .  .  .  had  not  power  to  put 
men  to  death  .  .  .  that  for  himself  he  had  neither  horn 
nor  hoofe  of  his  own,  nor  anything  wherewith  to  buy 
his  children  cloaths  ...  if  he  must  pay  the  fine  he 
would  pay  it  in  books,  but  that  he  knew  not  for  what 
they  were  fined,  unlesse  it  were  for  petitioning :  and 
if  they  were  so  waspish  they  might  not  be  petitioned, 
then  he  could  not  tell  what  to  say."  3 

Unluckily  for  Mr.  Hubbert  he  had  taken  the  popu- 
lar side  in  this  dispute  and  had  thus  been  sundered 
from  his  brethren,  who  sustained  Winthrop,  and  in  the 
end  carried  him  through  in  triumph  ;  and  not  only 
this,  but  he  was  suspected  of  Presbyterian  tendencies, 
and  a  committee  of  the  elders  who  had  visited  Hing- 
ham to  reconcile  some  differences  in  the  congregation 

i  Winthrop,  ii.  227.  2  1645-46,  18  March. 

8  New  Eng.  Jonas,  Marvin's  ed.  p.  5. 


254  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

had  found  him  in  grave  fault.  The  government  was 
not  sorry,  therefore,  to  make  him  a  public  example, 
as  appeared  not  only  by  these  proceedings,  but  by  the 
way  he  was  treated  in  the  General  Court  the  next 
autumn.  He  was  accordingly  indicted  for  sedition, 
tried  and  convicted  in  June,  fined  twenty  pounds,  and 
bound  over  to  good  behavior  in  forty  pounds  more.1 
Such  a  disturbance  as  this  seems  to  have  been  all  that 
was  needed  to  bring  the  latent  discontent  to  a  focus. 

William  Vassal  had  been  an  original  patentee  and 
was  a  member  of  the  first  Board  of  Assistants,  who 
were  appointed  by  the  king.  Being,  however,  a  man 
of  liberal  views  he  had  not  found  Massachusetts  con- 
genial ;  he  had  returned  to  England  after  a  stay  of 
only  a  month,  and  when  he  came  again  to  America  in 
1635,  he  had  settled  at  Scituate,  the  town  adjoining 
Hingham,  but  in  the  Plymouth  jurisdiction.  Having 
both  wealth  and  social  position  he  possessed  great  influ- 
ence, and  he  now  determined  to  lead  an  agitation  for 
equal  rights  and  liberty  of  conscience  in  both  colonies 
at  once,  by  petitioning  the  legislatures,  and  in  case  of 
failure  there,  presenting  similar  petitions  to  Parlia- 
ment. 

Bradford  was  this  year2  governor  of  Plymouth, 
and  Edward  Winslow  was  an  assistant.  Winslow 
himself  had  been  governor  repeatedly,  was  a  thor- 
ough-going churchman,  and  deep  in  all  the  coun- 
cils of  the  conservative  party.  There  was,  however, 
no  religious  qualification  for  the  suffrage  in  the  old 
1  New  Eng.  Jonas,  p.  6.  2  June,  1646.  2  1645. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  255 

colony,  and  the  complexion  of  its  politics  was  there- 
fore far  more  liberal  than  in  Massachusetts ;  so  Vas- 
sal was  able  to  command  a  strong  support  when  he 
brought  forward  his  proposition.  Winslow,  writing  to 
his  friend  Winthrop  at  Boston,  gives  an  amusing  ac- 
count of  his  own  and  Bradford's  consternation,  and  the 
expedients  to  which  they  were  forced  to  resort  in  the 
legislature  to  stave  off  a  vote  upon  the  petition,  when 
Vassal  made  his  motion  in  October,  1645. 

"  After  this,  the  first  excepter  [Vassal]  having  been 
observed  to  tender  the  view  of  a  scroule  from  man  to 
man,  it  came  at  length  to  be  tendered  to  myself,  and 
withall,  said  he,  it  may  be  you  will  not  like  this. 
Having  read  it,  I  told  him  I  utterly  abhorred  it  as 
such  as  would  make  us  odious  to  all  Christian  com* 
monweales  :  But  at  length  he  told  the  governor 
[Bradford]  he  had  a  written  proposition  to  be  pro- 
pounded to  the  court,  which  he  desired  the  court  to 
take  into  consideration,  and  according  to  order,  if 
thought  meet,  to  be  allowed :  To  this  the  deputies 
were  most  made  beforehand,  and  the  other  three  as- 
sistants, who  applauded  it  as  their  Diana;  and  the 
sum  of  it  was,  to  allow  and  maintaine  full  and  free 
tollerance  of  religion  to  all  men  that  would  preserve 
the  civill  peace  and  submit  unto  government ;  and 
there  was  no  limitation  or  exception  against  Turke, 
Jew,  Papist,  Arian,  Socinian,  Nicholaytan,  Familist, 
or  any  other,  &c.  But  our  governor  and  divers  of  us 
having  expressed  the  sad  consequences  would  follow, 
especially  myselfe  and  Mr.  Prence,  yet  notwithstand- 


256  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

ing  it  was  required,  according  to  order,  to  be  voted : 
But  the  governor  would  not  suffer  it  to  come  to  vote, 
as  being  that  indeed  would  eate  out  the  power  of  God- 
lines,  &c.  .  .  .  You  would  have  admired  to  have  seen 
how  sweet  this  carrion  relished  to  the  pallate  of  most 
of  the  deputies!  What  will  be  the  issue  of  these 
things,  our  all  ordering  God  onely  knows.  .  .  .  But  if 
he  have  such  a  judgment  for  this  place,  I  trust  we 
shall  finde  (I  speake  for  many  of  us  that  groane  un- 
der these  things)  a  resting  place  among  you  for  the 
scales  of  our  feet."  l 

As  just  then  nothing  more  could  be  done  in  Plym- 
outh, proceedings  were  transferred  to  Massachusetts. 
Samuel  Maverick  is  a  bright  patch  of  color  on  the  sad 
Puritan  background.  He  had  a  dwelling  at  Winnisime, 
that  "  in  the  yeare  1625  I  fortified  with  a  pillizado 
and  fflankers  and  gunnes  both  belowe  and  above  in 
them  which  awed  the  Indians  who  at  that  time  had  a 
mind  to  cutt  off  the  English."2  When  Winthrop 
landed,  he  found  him  keeping  open  house,  so  kindly 
and  freehanded  that  even  the  grim  Johnson  relaxes 
when  he  speaks  of  him :  "  a  man  of  very  loving  and 
curteous  behaviour,  very  ready  to  entertaine  stran- 
gers, yet  an  enemy  to  the  reformation  in  hand,  being 
strong  for  the  lordly  prelatical  power."  a 

This  genial  English  churchman  entertained  every 
one  at  his  home  on  Noddle's  Island,  which  is  now 

i  Hutch.  CoU^  Prince  Soc.  ed.  i.  174. 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proceedings,  Oct.  18M,  p.  236. 

«  Wonder  -Working  Providence,  Poole's  ed.  p.  37. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  257 

East  Boston :  Vane  and  Lord  Ley,  and  La  Tour  when 
he  came  to  Boston  ruined,  and  even  Owen  when  he 
ran  off  with  another  man's  wife,  and  so  brought  a  fine 
of  X100  on  his  host.  Josselyn  says  with  much  feeling: 
"  I  went  a  shore  upon  Noddles  Island  to  Mr.  Samuel 
Maverick,  ...  the  only  hospitable  man  in  the  whole 
countrey.''  He  was  charitable  also,  and  Winthrop  re- 
lates how,  when  the  Indians  were  dying  of  the  small- 
pox, he,  "his  wife  and  servants,  went  daily  to  them, 
ministered  to  their  necessities,  and  buried  their  dead, 
and  took  home  many  of  their  children."  He  was 
generous,  too,  with  his  wealth;  and  when  the  town 
had  to  rebuild  the  fort  on  Castle  Island  much  of  the 
money  came  from  him. 

But,  as  Endicott  told  the  Browns,  when  he  shipped 
them  to  England,  because  their  practice  in  adhering 
to  their  Episcopal  orders  tended  to  "  mutiny,"  "  New 
England  was  no  place  for  such  as  they."  One  by  one 
they  had  gone,  —  the  Browns  first,  and  afterward 
William  Blackstone,  who  had  found  it  best  to  leave 
Boston  because  he  could  not  join  the  church ;  and  now 
the  pressure  on  Maverick  began  to  make  him  restive. 
Though  he  had  been  admitted  a  freeman  in  the  early 
days,  he  was  excluded  from  all  offices  of  importance  ; 
he  was  taxed  to  support  a  church  of  which  he  disap- 
proved, yet  was  forced  to  attend,  though  it  would  not 
baptize  his  children ;  and  he  was  so  suspected  that,  in 
March,  1635,  he  had  been  ordered  to  remove  to  Boston, 
and  was  forbidden  to  lodge  strangers  for  more  than 
one  night  without  leave  from  a  magistrate.  Under 


258  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

such  circumstances  he  could  not  but  sympathize  with 
Vassal  in  his  effort  to  win  for  all  men  equal  rights  be- 
fore the  law.  Next  after  him  in  consequence  was  Dr. 
Robert  Childe,  who  had  taken  a  degree  at  Padua,  and 
who,  though  not  a  freeman,  had  considerable  interests 
in  the  country,  —  a  man  of  property  and  standing. 
There  were  five  more  signers  of  the  petition :  Thomas 
Burton,  John  Smith,  David  Yale,  Thomas  Fowle,  and 
John  Dand,  but  they  do  not  require  particular  notice. 
They  prayed  that  "civil  liberty  and  freedome  be 
forthwith  granted  to  all  truly  English,  equall  to  the 
rest  of  their  countrymen,  as  in  all  plantations  is  ac- 
customed to  be  done,  and  as  all  free-borne  enjoy  in 
our  native  country.  .  .  .  Further  that  none  of  the 
English  nation  ...  be  banished  unlesse  they  break 
the  known  lawes  of  England.  .  .  .  We  therefore 
humbly  intreat  you,  in  whose  hands  it  is  to  help  .  .  . 
for  the  glory  of  God  ...  to  give  liberty  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  churches  of  England  not  scandalous  in 
their  lives  ...  to  be  taken  into  your  congregations, 
and  to  enjoy  with  you  all  those  liberties  and  ordi- 
nances Christ  hath  purchased  for  them,  and  into 
whose  name  they  are  baptized  ...  or  otherwise  to 
grant  liberty  to  settle  themselves  here  in  a  church 
way  according  to  the  best  reformations  of  England 
and  Scotland.  If  not,  we  and  they  shall  be  neces- 
sitated to  apply  our  humble  desires  to  the  Honorable 
Houses  of  Parliament."  1 

This  petition  was  presented  to  the  court  on  May 
1  New  Eng.  Jonas,  Marvin's  ed.  pp.  13-15. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  259 

19,  1646 ;  but  the  session  was  near  its  close,  and  it 
was  thought  best  to  take  no  immediate  steps.  The 
elders,  however,  became  satisfied  that  the  moment  had 
come  for  a  thorough  organization  of  the  church,  and 
they  therefore  caused  the  legislature  to  issue  a  general 
invitation  to  all  the  congregations  to  send  representa- 
tives to  a  synod  to  be  held  at  Cambridge.  But  not- 
withstanding the  inaction  of  the  authorities,  the  clergy 
were  perfectly  aware  of  the  danger,  and  they  passed 
the  summer  in  creating  the  necessary  indignation 
among  the  voters  :  they  bitterly  denounced  from  their 
pulpits  "  the  sons  of  Belial,  Judasses,  sons  of  Corah," 
"  with  sundry  appellations  of  that  nature  .  .  .  which 
seemed  not  to  arise  from  a  gospel  spirit."  Some- 
times they  devoted  "  a  whole  sermon,  and  that  not  very 
short,"  to  describing  the  impending  ruin  and  exhort- 
ing the  magistrates  "  to  lay  hold  upon  "  the  offenders.1 
Winthrop  had  been  chosen  governor  in  May,  and, 
when  the  legislature  met  in  October,  he  was  made 
chairman  of  a  committee  to  draft  an  answer  to  Childe. 
This  document  may  be  found  in  Hutchinson's  Collec- 
tion. As  a  state  paper  devoted  to  the  discussion  of 
questions  of  constitutional  law  it  has  little  merit,  but 
it  may  have  been  effective  as  a  party  manifesto.  A 
short  adjournment  followed  till  November,  when,  on 
reassembling,  the  elders  were  asked  for  their  advice 
upon  this  absorbing  topic. 

"  Mr.  Hubbard  of  Hingham  came  with  the  rest,  but 
the  court  being  informed  that  he  had  an  hand  in  a  pe- 
1  New  Eng.  Jonas,  Marvin's  ed.  p.  19. 


260  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

tition,  which  Mr.  Vassall  carried  into  England  against 
the  country  in  general,  the  governour  propounded,  that 
if  any  elder  present  had  any  such  hand,  &c.,  he  would 
withdraw  himself."  Mr.  Hubbert  sitting  still  a  good 
space,  one  of  the  deputies  stated  that  he  was  suspected, 
whereupon  he  rose  and  said  he  knew  nothing  of  such 
a  petition. 

Then  Winthrop  replied  that  he  "  must  needs  deliver 
his  mind  about  him,"  and  though  he  had  no  proof 
about  the  petition,  "  yet  in  regard  he  had  so  much 
opposed  authority  and  offered  such  contempt  to  it, 
...  he  thought  he  would  (in  discretion)  withdraw 
himself,  &c.,  whereupon  he  went  out."  l 

The  ministers  who  remained  then  proceeded  to  de- 
fine the  relations  of  Massachusetts  toward  England, 
and  the  position  they  assumed  was  very  simple. 

"  I.  We  depend  upon  the  state  of  England  for  pro- 
tection and  immunities  of  Englishmen.  ...  II.  We 
conceive  .  .  we  have  granted  by  patent  such  full  and 
ample  power  ...  of  making  all  laws  and  rules  of  our 
obedience,  an^  of  a  full  and  final  determination  of  all 
cases  in  the  administration  of  justice,  that  no  appeals 
or  other  ways  of  interrupting  our  proceedings  do  lie 
against  us."  2 

In  other  words,  they  were  to  enjoy  the  privileges 
and  safeguards  of  British  subjects  without  yielding 
obedience  to  British  law. 

Under  popular  governments  the  remedy  for  discon- 
tent is  free  discussion ;  under  despotisms  it  is  repres- 
1  Winthrop,  ii.  278.  a  Winthrop,  ii.  282. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  261 

sion.  In  Massachusetts  energetic  steps  were  promptly 
taken  to  punish  the  ring-leaders  in  what  the  court 
now  declared  to  be  a  conspiracy.  The  petitioners 
were  summoned,  and  on  being  questioned  refused  to 
answer  until  some  charge  was  made.  A  hot  alterca- 
tion followed,  which  ended  in  the  defendants  tender- 
ing an  appeal,  which  was  refused ;  and  they  were  com- 
mitted for  trial.1  A  species  of  indictment  was  then 
prepared  in  which  they  were  charged  with  publishing 
seditious  libels  against  the  Church  of  Christ  and  the 
civil  government.  The  gravamen  of  the  offence  was 
the  attempt  to  persuade  the  people  "  that  the  liberties 
and  privileges  in  our  charter  belong  to  all  freeborn 
Englishmen  inhabitants  here,  whereas  they  are  granted 
only  to  such  as  the  governour  and  company  shall  think 
fit  to  receive  into  that  fellowship."  2  The  appeal  was 
held  criminal  because  a  denial  of  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  government.  The  trial  resembled  Wheelwright's. 
Like  him  the  defendants  refused  to  make  submission, 
but  persisted  "  obstinately  and  proudly  in  their  evil 
practice ;  "  that  is  to  say,  they  maintained  the  right  of 
petition  and  the  legality  of  their  course.  They  were 
therefore  fined :  Childe  £50  ;  Smith  £40  ;  Maverick, 
because  he  had  not  yet  appealed,  £10  ;  and  the  others 
£30  each ;  three  magistrates  dissented. 

Childe  at  once  began  hasty  preparations  to  sail. 
To  prevent  him  Winthrop  called  the  assistants  to- 
gether, without,  however,  giving  the  dissenting  magis- 
trates notice,  and  arranged  to  have  him  arrested  and 
searched. 

1  Winthrop,  ii.  285.  2  Idem. 


262  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

One  striking  characteristic  of  the  theocracy  was  its 
love  for  inflicting  mental  suffering  upon  its  victims. 
The  same  malicious  vindictiveness  which  sent  Morton 
to  sea  in  sight  of  his  blazing  home,  and  which  impris- 
oned Anne  Hutchinson  in  the  house  of  her  bitterest 
enemy,  now  suggested  a  scheme  for  making  Childe 
endure  the  pangs  of  disappointment,  by  allowing  him 
to  embark,  and  then  seizing  him  as  the  ship  was  set- 
ting sail.  And  though  the  plan  miscarried,  and  the 
arrest  had  to  be  made  the  night  before,  yet  even  as  it 
was  the  prisoner  took  his  confinement  very  "griev- 
ously, but  he  could  not  help  it."  1 

Nothing  criminating  was  found  in  his  possession, 
but  in  Dand's  study,  which  was  ransacked,  copies  of 
two  petitions  were  discovered,  with  a  number  of  que- 
ries relating  to  certain  legal  aspects  of  the  charter,  and 
intended  to  be  submitted  to  the  Commissioners  for  the 
Plantations  at  London. 

These  petitions  were  substantially  those  already 
presented,  except  that,  by  way  of  preamble,  the  story 
of  the  trial  was  told  ;  and  how  the  ministers  "  did  re- 
vile them,  &c.,  as  far  as  the  wit  or  malice  of  man 
could,  and  that  they  meddled  in  civil  affaires  beyond 
their  calling,  and  were  masters  rather  than  ministers, 
and  ofttimes  judges,  and  that  they  had  stirred  up  the 
magistrates  against  them,  and  that  a  day  of  humilia- 
tion was  appointed,  wherein  they  were  to  pray  against 
them."  2 

Such  words  had  never  been  heard  in  Massachusetts. 

1  Winthrop,  ii.  294.  2  Winthrop,  ii.  293. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  263 

The  saints  were  aghast.  Winthrop  speaks  of  the  of- 
fence as  "  being  in  nature  capital,"  and  Johnson 
thought  the  Lord's  gracious  goodness  alone  quelled 
this  malice  against  his  people. 

Of  course  no  mercy  was  shown.  It  is  true  that  the 
writings  were  lawful  petitions  by  English  subjects  to 
Parliament ;  that,  moreover,  they  had  never  been  pub- 
lished, but  were  found  in  a  private  room  by  means  of 
a  despotic  search.  Several  of  the  signers  were  im- 
prisoned for  six  months  and  then  were  punished  in 
May:  — 

Doctor  Childe,  (imprisonment  till  paid,)  £200 

John  Smith,  "  «      "  100 

John  Dand,  «  "      "  200 

Tho.  Burton,  "  "      "  100 

Samuel  Maverick,  for  his  offence  in  being  pty 
to  ye  conspiracy,  (imprison- 
ment till  paid,)  100 
Samuel  Maverick,  ffor  his  offence  in  breaking  his 
oath  and  in  appealing  agnst  ye 
intent  of  his  oath  of  a  freeman,    50  1 

The  conspirators  of  the  poorer  class  were  treated 
with  scant  ceremony.  A  carpenter  named  Joy  was  in 
Dand's  study  when  the  officers  entered.  He  asked  if 
the  warrant  was  in  the  king's  name.  "  He  was  laid 
hold  on,  and  kept  in  irons  about  four  or  five  days,  and 
then  he  humbled  himself  .  .  .  for  meddling  in  matters 
belonging  not  to  him,  and  blessed  God  for  these  irons 

1  Mass.  Rec.  iii.  113.  May  26, 1647.  £200  was  the  equivalent 
of  about  $5,000. 


264  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

upon  his  legs,  hoping  they  should  do  him  good  while 
he  lived."  i 

But  though  the  government  could  oppress  the  men, 
they  could  not  make  their  principles  unpopular,  and 
the  next  December  after  Vassal  and  his  friends  had 
left  the  colony,  the  orthodox  Samuel  Symonds  of  Ips- 
wich wrote  mournfully  to  Winthrop :  "  I  am  informed 
that  coppies  of  the  petition  are  spreading  here,  and 
divers  (specially  young  men  and  women)  are  taken 
with  it,  and  are  apt  to  wonder  why  such  men  should 
be  troubled  that  speake  as  they  doe :  not  being  able 
suddenly  to  discerne  the  poyson  in  the  sweet  wine,  nor 
the  fire  wrapped  up  in  the  straw."  2  The  petitioners, 
however,  never  found  redress.  Edward  Win  slow  had 
been  sent  to  London  as  agent,  and  in  1648  he  was 
able  to  write  that  their  "  hopes  and  endeavours  .  .  . 
had  been  blasted  by  the  special  providence  of  the 
Lord  who  still  wrought  for  us."  And  Winthrop  pi- 
ously adds :  "  As  for  those  who  went  over  to  pro- 
cure us  trouble,  God  met  with  them  all.  Mr.  Vas- 
sall,  finding  no  entertainment  for  his  petitions,  went 
to  Barbadoes,"8  .  .  .  "God  had  brought"  Thomas 
Fowle  "very  low,  both  in  his  estate  and  in  his  rep- 
utation, since  he  joined  in  the  first  petition."  And 
"  God  had  so  blasted  "  Childe's  "  estate  as  he  was 
quite  broken."  * 

Maverick  remained  some  years  in  Boston,  being 
probably  unable  to  abandon  his  property  ;  during  this 

1  Winthrop,  ii.  291.  2  Felt's  Eccl  Hist.  i.  593. 

«  Winthrop,  ii.  321.  *  Winthrop,  ii.  322. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  265 

interval  he  made  several  efforts  to  have  his  fine  re- 
mitted, and  he  did  finally  secure  an  abatement  of  one 
half.  He  then  went  to  England  and  long  afterward 
came  back  as  a  royal  commissioner  to  try  his  fortune 
once  again  in  a  contest  with  the  theocracy. 

Dr.  Palfrey  has  described  this  movement  as  a  plot 
to  introduce  a  direct  government  by  England  by  in- 
ducing Parliament  to  establish  Presbyterianism.  By 
other  than  theological  reasoning  this  inference  cannot 
be  deduced  from  the  evidence.  All  that  is  certainly 
known  about  the  leaders  is  that  they  were  not  of  any 
one  denomination.  Maverick  was  an  Episcopalian; 
Vassal  was  probably  an  Independent  like  Cromwell 
or  Milton ;  and  though  the  elders  accused  Childe  of 
being  a  Jesuit,  there  is  some  ground  to  suppose  that 
he  inclined  toward  Geneva.  So  far  as  the  testimony 
goes,  everything  tends  to  prove  that  the  petitioners 
were  perfectly  sincere  in  their  effort  to  gain  some 
small  measure  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  for  them- 
selves and  for  the  disfranchised  majority. 

Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  history  and  not  of 
prejudice,  the  events  of  these  early  years  present  them- 
selves in  a  striking  and  unmistakable  sequence. 

They  are  the  phenomena  that  regularly  attend  a  cer- 
tain stage  of  human  development,  — the  absorption  of 
power  by  an  aristocracy.  The  clergy's  rule  was  rigid, 
and  met  with  resistance,  which  was  crushed  with  an 
iron  hand.  Was  it  defection  from  their  own  ranks, 
the  deserters  met  the  fate  of  Wheelwright,  of  Wil- 
liams, of  Cotton,  or  of  Hubbert ;  were  politicians  con- 


266  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

tumacious,  they  were  defeated  or  exiled,  like  Vane, 
or  Aspinwall,  or  Coddington ;  were  citizens  discon- 
tented, they  were  coerced  like  Maverick  and  Childe. 
The  process  had  been  uninterrupted  alike  in  church 
and  state.  The  congregations,  which  in  theory  should 
have  included  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns,  had 
shrunk  until  they  contained  only  a  third  or  a  quar- 
ter of  the  people ;  while  the  churches  themselves, 
which  were  supposed  to  be  independent  of  external 
interference  and  to  regulate  their  affairs  by  the  will 
of  the  majority,  had  become  little  more  than  the  chat- 
tels of  the  priests,  and  subject  to  the  control  of  the 
magistrates  who  were  their  representatives.  This 
system  has  generally  prevailed  ;  in  like  manner  the 
Inquisition  made  use  of  the  secular  arm.  The  condi- 
tion of  ecclesiastical  affairs  is  thus  described  by  the 
highest  living  authority  on  Congregationalism  :  — 

"  Our  fathers  laid  it  down  —  and  with  perfect 
truth  —  that  the  will  of  Christ,  and  not  the  will  of 
the  major  or  minor  part  of  a  church,  ought  to  gov- 
ern that  church.  But  somebody  must  interpret  that 
will.  And  they  quietly  assumed  that  Christ  would 
reveal  his  will  to  the  elders,  but  would  not  reveal  it 
to  the  church-members;  so  that  when  there  arose  a 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  the  Master's  will 
might  be  touching  any  particular  matter,  the  judg- 
ment of  the  elders,  rather  than  the  judgment  even  of 
a  majority  of  the  membership,  must  be  taken  as  con- 
clusive. To  all  intents  and  purposes,  then,  this  was 
precisely  the  aristocracy  which  they  affirmed  that  it 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  267 

was  not.  For  the  elders  were  to  order  business  in  the 
assurance  that  every  truly  humble  and  sincere  mem- 
ber would  consent  thereto.  If  any  did  not  consent, 
and  after  patient  debate  remained  of  another  judg- 
ment, he  was  '  partial '  and  *  factious,'  and  continu- 
ing '  obstinate,'  he  was  '  admonished '  and  his  vote 
'  nullified ; '  so  that  the  elders  could  have  their  way 
in  the  end  by  merely  adding  the  insult  of  the  ap- 
parent but  illusive  offer  of  cooperation  to  the  injury 
of  their  absolute  control.  As  Samuel  Stone  of  Hart- 
ford no  more  tersely  than  truly  put  it,  this  kind  of 
Congregationalism  was  simply  a  '  speaking  Aristoc- 
racy in  the  face  of  a  silent  Democracy.'  "  l 

It  is  true  that  Vassal's  petition  was  the  event  which 
made  the  ministers  decide  to  call  a  synod 2  by  means 
of  an  invitation  of  the  General  Court ;  but  it  is  also 
certain  that  under  no  circumstances  would  the  meet- 
ing of  some  such  council  have  been  long  delayed. 
For  sixteen  years  the  well-known  process  had  been 
going  on,  of  the  creation  of  institutions  by  custom, 
having  the  force  of  law ;  the  stage  of  development 
had  now  been  reached  when  it  was  necessary  that 
those  usages  should  take  the  shape  of  formal  enact- 
ments. The  Cambridge  platform  therefore  marks  the 
completion  of  an  organization,  and  as  such  is  the  cen- 
tral point  in  the  history  of  the  Puritan  Common- 
wealth. The  work  was  done  in  August,  1648 :  the 

1  Early  New  England  Congregationalism,  as  seen  in  its  Litera- 
ture, p.  429.     Dr.  Dexter. 

2  Winthrop,  ii.  264 


268  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

Westminster  Confession  was  promulgated  as  the 
creed  ;  the  powers  of  the  clergy  were  minutely  de- 
fined, and  the  duty  of  the  laity  stated  to  be  "  obeying 
their  elders  and  submitting  themselves  unto  them  in 
the  Lord."  1  The  magistrate  was  enjoined  to  punish 
"  idolatry,  blasphemy,  heresy,"  and  to  coerce  any 
church  becoming  "  schismatical." 

In  October,  1649,  the  court  commended  the  plat- 
form to  the  consideration  of  the  congregations ;  in 
October,  1651,  it  was  adopted ;  and  when  church  and 
state  were  thus  united  by  statute  the  theocracy  was 
complete. 

The  close  of  the  era  of  construction  is  also  marked 
by  the  death  of  those  two  remarkable  men  whose  in- 
fluence has  left  the  deepest  imprint  upon  the  institu- 
tions they  helped  to  mould :  John  Winthrop,  who  died 
in  1649,  and  John  Cotton  in  1652. 

Winthrop's  letters  to  his  wife  show  him  to  have 
been  tender  and  gentle,  and  that  his  disposition  was 
one  to  inspire  love  is  proved  by  the  affection  those 
bore  him  who  had  suffered  most  at  his  hands.  Wil- 
liams and  Vane  and  Coddington  kept  their  friendship 
for  him  to  the  end.  But  these  very  qualities,  so  ami- 
able in  themselves,  made  him  subject  to  the  influence 
of  men  of  inflexible  will.  His  dream  was  to  create  on 
earth  a  commonwealth  of  saints  whose  joy  would  be  to 
walk  in  the  ways  of  God.  But  in  practice  he  had  to 
deal  with  the  strongest  of  human  passions.  In  1634, 
though  supported  by  Cotton,  he  was  defeated  by  Dud- 
1  Cambridge  Platform,  ch.  x.  section  7. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  2G9 

ley,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  was  caused 
by  the  defection  of  the  body  of  the  clergy.  The  ev- 
idence seems  conclusive,  for  the  next  year  Vane 
brought  about  an  interview  between  the  two  at  which 
Haynes  was  present,"  and  there  Haynes  upbraided  him 
with  remissness  in  administering  justice.1  Winthrop 
agreed  to  leave  the  question  to  the  ministers,  who  the 
next  morning  gave  an  emphatic  opinion  in  favor  of 
strict  discipline.  Thenceforward  he  was  pliant  in 
their  hands,  and  with  that  day  opened  the  dark  epoch 
of  his  life.  By  leading  the  crusade  against  the  Anti- 
nomians  he  regained  the  confidence  of  the  elders  and 
they  never  again  failed  him ;  but  in  return  they  ex- 
acted obedience  to  their  will;  and  the  rancor  with 
which  he  pursued  Anne  Hutchinson,  Gorton,  and 
Childe  cannot  be  extenuated,  and  must  ever  be  a 
stain  upon  his  fame. 

As  Hutchinson  points  out,  in  early  life  his  tenden- 
cies were  liberal,  but  in  America  he  steadily  grew 
narrow.  The  reason  is  obvious.  The  leader  of  an 
intolerant  party  has  himself  to  be  intolerant.  His 
claim  to  eminence  as  a  statesman  must  rest  upon  the 
purity  of  his  moral  character,  his  calm  temper,  and 
his  good  judgment ;  for  his  mind  was  not  original  or 
brilliant,  nor  was  his  thought  in  advance  of  his  age. 
Herein  he  differed  from  his  celebrated  contemporary, 
for  among  the  long  list  of  famous  men,  who  are  the 
pride  of  Massachusetts,  there  are  few  who  in  mere 
intellectual  capacity  outrank  Cotton.  He  was  not 
i  Winthrop,  i.  178. 


270  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

only  a  profound  scholar,  an  eloquent  preacher,  and  a 
famous  controversialist,  but  a  great  organizer,  and  a 
natural  politician.  He  it  was  who  constructed  the 
Congregational  hierarchy;  his  publications  were  the 
accepted  authority  both  abroad  and  at  home;  and 
the  system  which  he  developed  in  his  books  was  that 
which  was  made  law  by  the  Cambridge  Platform. 

Of  medium  height,  florid  complexion,  and  as  he 
grew  old  some  tendency  to  be  stout,  but  with  snowy 
hair  and  much  personal  dignity,  he  seems  to  have  had 
an  irresistible  charm  of  manner  toward  those  whom 
he  wished  to  attract. 

Comprehending  thoroughly  the  feelings  and  preju- 
dices of  the  clergy,  he  influenced  them  even  more  by 
his  exquisite  tact  than  by  his  commanding  ability ;  and 
of  easy  fortune  and  hospitable  alike  from  inclination 
and  from  interest,  he  entertained  every  elder  who  went 
to  Boston.  He  understood  the  art  of  flattery  to  per- 
fection ;  or,  as  Norton  expressed  it,  "  he  was  a  man  of 
ingenuous  and  pious  candor,  rejoicing  (as  opportunity 
served)  to  take  notice  of  and  testifie  unto  the  gifts  of 
God  in  his  brethren,  thereby  drawing  the  hearts  of 
them  to  him.  . . ."  1  No  other  clergyman  has  ever  been 
able  to  reach  the  position  he  held  with  apparent  ease, 
which  amounted  to  a  sort  of  primacy  of  New  England. 
His  dangers  lay  in  the  very  fecundity  of  his  mind. 
Though  hampered  by  his  education  and  profession,  he 
was  naturally  liberal ;  and  his  first  miscalculation  was 
when,  almost  immediately  on  landing,  he  supported 
1  Norton's  Funeral  Sermon,  p.  37. 


THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  271 

Wiuthrop,  who  was  in  disgrace  for  the  mildness  of  hb 
administration,  against  the  austerer  Dudley. 

The  consciousness  of  his  intellectual  superiority 
seems  to  have  given  him  an  almost  overweening  confi- 
dence in  his  ability  to  induce  his  brethren  to  accept 
the  broader  theology  he  loved  to  preach ;  nor  did  he 
apparently  realize  that  comprehension  was  incompati- 
ble with  a  theocratic  government,  and  that  his  success 
would  have  undermined  the  organization  he  was  labor- 
ing to  perfect.  He  thus  committed  the  error  of  his 
life  in  undertaking  to  preach  a  religious  reformation, 
without  having  the  resolution  to  face  a  martyrdom. 
But  when  he  saw  his  mistake,  the  way  in  which  he  re- 
trieved himself  showed  a  consummate  knowledge  of 
human  nature  and  of  the  men  with  whom  he  had  to 
deal.  Nor  did  he  ever  forget  the  lesson.  From  that 
time  forward  he  took  care  that  no  one  should  be  able 
to  pick  a  flaw  in  his  orthodoxy ;  and  whatever  he  may 
have  thought  of  much  of  the  policy  of  his  party,  he 
was  always  ready  to  defend  it  without  flinching. 

Neither  he  nor  Winthrop  died  too  soon,  for  with  the 
completion  of  the  task  of  organization  the  work  that 
suited  them  was  finished,  and  they  were  unfit  for  that 
which  remained  to  be  done.  An  oligarchy,  whose 
power  rests  on  faith  and  not  on  force,  can  only  exist 
by  extirpating  all  who  openly  question  their  preten- 
sions to  preeminent  sanctity  ;  and  neither  of  these  men 
belonged  to  the  class  of  natural  persecutors,  —  the  one 
was  too  gentle,  the  other  too  liberal.  An  example  will 
show  better  than  much  argument  how  little  in  accord 


272  THE   CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

either  really  was  with  that  spirit  which,  in  the  regular 
course  of  social  development,  had  thenceforward  to 
dominate  over  Massachusetts. 

Captain  Partridge  had  fought  for  the  Parliament, 
and  reached  Boston  at  the  beginning  of  the  winter  of 
1645.  He  was  arrested  and  examined  as  a  heretic, 
The  magistrates  referred  the  case  to  Cotton,  who  re- 
ported that  "  he  found  him  corrupt  in  judgment,"  but 
"  had  good  hope  to  reclaim  him."  l  An  instant  recan- 
tation was  demanded ;  it  was  of  course  refused,  and,  in 
spite  of  all  remonstrance,  the  family  was  banished  in 
the  snow.  Winthrop's  sad  words  were :  "  But  sure, 
the  rule  of  hospitality  to  strangers,  and  of  seeking  to 
pluck  out  of  the  fire  such  as  there  may  be  hope  of, 
...  do  seem  to  require  more  moderation  and  indul- 
gence of  human  infirmity  where  there  appears  not  ob- 
stinacy against  the  clear  truth."  2 

But  in  the  savage  and  bloody  struggle  that  was  now 
at  hand  there  was  no  place  for  leaders  capable  of  pity 
or  remorse,  and  the  theocracy  found  supremely  gifted 
chieftains  in  John  Norton  and  John  Endicott. 

Norton  approaches  the  ideal  of  the  sterner  orders  of 
the  priesthood.  A  gentleman  by  birth  and  breeding, 
a  ripe  scholar,  with  a  keen  though  polished  wit,  his 
sombre  temper  was  deeply  tinged  with  fanaticism. 
Unlike  so  many  of  his  brethren,  temporal  concerns 
were  to  him  of  but  little  moment,  for  every  passion  of 
his  gloomy  soul  was  intensely  concentrated  on  the  war- 
fare he  believed  himself  waging  with  the  fiend.  Doubt 
*  Winthrop,  ii.  251.  3  Winthrop,  ii.  251. 


THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM.  273 

or  compassion  was  impossible,  for  he  was  commis- 
sioned by  the  Lord.  He  was  Christ's  elected  minister, 
and  misbelievers  were  children  of  the  devil  whom  it 
was  his  sacred  duty  to  destroy.  He  knew  by  the  Word 
of  God  that  all  save  the  orthodox  were  lost,  and  that 
heretics  not  only  perished,  but  were  the  hirelings  of 
Satan,  who  tempted  the  innocent  to  their  doom ;  he 
therefore  hated  and  feared  them  more  than  robbers  or 
murderers.  Words  seemed  to  fail  him  when  he  tried  to 
express  his  horror :  "  The  face  of  death,  the  King  of 
Terrours,  the  living  man  by  instinct  turneth  his  face 
from.  An  unusual  shape,  a  satanical  phantasm,  a 
ghost,  or  apparition,  affrights  the  disciples.  But  the 
face  of  heresie  is  of  a  more  horrid  aspect  than  all  ... 
put  together,  as  arguing  some  signal  inlargement  of 
the  power  of  darkness  as  being  diabolical,  prodigeous, 
portentous."  l  By  nature,  moreover,  he  had  in  their 
fullest  measure  the  three  attributes  of  a  preacher  of  a 
persecution,  —  eloquence,  resolution,  and  a  heart  cal- 
lous to  human  suffering.  To  this  formidable  church- 
man was  joined  a  no  less  formidable  magistrate. 

No  figure  in  our  early  history  looms  out  of  the  past 
like  Endicott's.  The  harsh  face  still  looks  down  from 
under  the  black  skull-cap,  the  gray  moustache  and 
pointed  beard  shading  the  determined  mouth,  but 
throwing  into  relief  the  lines  of  the  massive  jaw.  He 
is  almost  heroic  in  his  ferocious  bigotry  and  daring,  — 
a  perfect  champion  of  the  church. 

The  grim  Puritan  soldier  is  almost  visible  as,  stand- 
1  Heart  of  New  Eng.  Rent,  p.  46. 


274  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PLATFORM. 

ing  at  the  head  of  his  men,  he  tears  the  red  cross  from 
the  flag,  and  defies  the  power  of  England ;  or,  in  that 
tremendous  moment,  when  the  people  were  hanging 
breathless  on  the  fate  of  Christison,  when  insurrection 
seemed  bursting  out  beneath  his  feet,  and  his  judges 
shrunk  aghast  before  the  peril,  we  yet  hear  the  savage 
old  man  furiously  strike  the  table,  and,  thanking  God 
that  he  at  least  dares  to  do  his  duty,  we  see  him  rise 
alone  before  that  threatening  multitude  to  condemn 
the  heretic  to  death. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

THE  Rev.  Thomas  Shepard,  pastor  of  Ciarlestown, 
was  such  an  example,  "in  word,  in  conversation,  in 
civility,  in  spirit,  in  faith,  in  purity,  that  he  did  let  no 
man  despise  his  youth ;  "  l  and  yet,  preaching  an  elec- 
tion sermon  before  the  governor  and  magistrates,  he 
told  them  that  "  anabaptisme  .  .  .  hath  ever  been  lookt 
at  by  the  godly  leaders  of  this  people  as  a  scab." 2 
While  the  Rev.  Samuel  Willard,  president  of  Har- 
vard, declared  that  "  such  a  rough  thing  as  a  New  Eng- 
land Anabaptist  is  not  to  be  handled  over  tenderly."  3 

So  early  as  1644,  therefore,  the  General  Court 
"  Ordered  and  agreed,  y*  if  any  pson  or  psons  wthin 
ye  iurisdiction  shall  eithr  openly  condemne  or  oppose 
ye  baptizg  of  infants,  or  go  about  secretly  to  seduce 
othra  from  ye  app'bation  or  use  thereof,  or  shall  pur- 
posely depart  ye  congregation  at  ye  administration  of 
ye  ordinance,  .  .  .  and  shall  appear  to  ye  Co't  will- 
fully and  obstinately  to  continue  therein  after  due 
time  and  meanes  of  conviction,  every  such  pson  or 
psons  shallbe  sentenced  to  banishmV'  4 

The  legislation,  however,  was  unpopular,  for  Win- 

1  Magnolia,  bk.  4,  ch.  ix.  §  6.  2  Eye  Salve,  p.  24. 

8  Ne  Sutor,  p.  10. 

*  Mass.  Rec.  ii.  85.    13  November,  1644. 


276  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

throp  relates  that  in  October,  1645,  divers  merchants 
and  others  petitioned  to  have  the  act  repealed,  because 
of  the  offense  taken  thereat  by  the  godly  in  England, 
and  the  court  seemed  inclined  to  accede,  "  but  many 
of  the  elders  .  .  .  entreated  that  the  law  might  con- 
tinue still  in  force,  and  the  execution  of  it  not  sus- 
pended, though  they  disliked  not  that  all  lenity  and  pa- 
tience should  be  used  for  convincing  and  reclaiming 
such  erroneous  persons.  Whereupon  the  court  refused 
to  make  any  further*  order."  l  And  Edward  Wins- 
low  assured  Parliament  in  1646,  when  sent  to  Eng- 
land to  represent  the  colony,  that,  some  mitigation 
being  desired,  "  it  was  answered  in  my  hearing.  'T  is 
true  we  have  a  severe  law,  but  wee  never  did  or  will 
execute  the  rigor  of  it  upon  any.  .  .  .  But  the  rea- 
son wherefore  wee  are  loath  either  to  repeale  or  alter 
the  law  is,  because  wee  would  have  it  ...  to  beare  wit- 
nesse  against  their  judgment,  .  .  .  which  we  conceive 
...  to  bee  erroneous."  2 

Unquestionably,  at  that  time  no  one  had  been  ban- 
ished ;  but  in  1644  "  one  Painter,  for  refusing  to  let 
his  child  be  baptized,  .  .  .  was  brought  before  the 
court,  where  he  declared  their  baptism  to  be  anti- 
Christian.  He  was  sentenced  to  be  whipped,  which 
he  bore  without  flinching,  and  boasted  that  God  had 
assisted  him."  3  Nor  was  his  a  solitary  instance  of 
severity.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  scorn  and  hatred 
which  the  orthodox  divines  felt  for  these  sectaries, 

1  Winthrop,  ii.  251.  "  Hypocrisie  Unmasked,  101. 

8  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  208,  note. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  277 

many  very  eminent  Puritans  fell  into  the  errors  of 
that  persuasion.  Roger  Williams  was  a  Baptist,  and 
Henry  Dunster,  for  the  same  heresy,  was  removed 
from  the  presidency  of  Harvard,  and  found  it  pru- 
dent to  end  his  days  within  the  Plymouth  jurisdic- 
tion. Even  that  great  champion  of  infant  baptism, 
Jonathan  Mitchell,  when  thrown  into  intimate  rela- 
tions with  Dunster,  had  doubts. 

"  That  day  .  .  .  after  I  came  from  him  I  had  a 
strange  experience  ;  I  found  hurrying  and  pressing 
suggestions  against  P^dobaptism,  and  injected  scru- 
ples and  thoughts  whether  the  other  way  might  not 
be  right,  and  infant  baptism  an  invention  of  men  ; 
and  whether  I  might  with  good  conscience  baptize 
children  and  the  like.  And  these  thoughts  were 
darted  in  with  some  impression,  and  left  a  strange 
confusion  and  sickliness  upon  my  spirit.  Yet,  me- 
thought,  it  was  not  hard  to  discern  that  they  were 
from  the  Evil  One ;  .  .  .  And  it  made  me  fearful  to 
go  needlessly  to  Mr.  D. ;  for  methought  I  found  a 
venom  and  poison  in  his  insinuations  and  discourses 
against  Psedobaptism." 1 

Henry  Dunster  was  an  uncommon  man.  Famed  for 
piety  in  an  age  of  fanaticism,  learned,  modest,  and 
brave,  by  the  unremitting  toil  of  thirteen  years  he 
raised  Harvard  from  a  school  to  the  position  which 
it  has  since  held ;  and  though  very  poor,  and  starving 
on  a  wretched  and  ill-paid  pittance,  he  gave  his  be- 
loved college  one  hundred  acres  of  land  at  the  mo- 
1  Magnolia,  bk.  4,  ch.  iv.  §  10. 


278  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

ment  of  its  sorest  need.1  Yet  he  was  a  criminal,  for 
he  would  not  baptize  infants,  and  he  met  with  the 
"  lenity  and  patience  "  which  the  elders  were  not  un- 
willing should  be  used  toward  the  erring. 

He  was  indicted  and  convicted  of  disturbing  church 
ordinances,  and  deprived  of  his  office  in  October,  1654. 
He  asked  for  leave  to  stay  in  the  house  he  had  built 
for  a  few  months,  and  his  petition  in  November  ought 
to  be  read  to  understand  how  heretics  were  made  to 
suffer :  — 

"  1st.  The  time  of  the  year  is  unseasonable,  being 
now  very  near  the  shortest  day,  and  the  depth  of  win- 
ter. 

"  2d.  The  place  unto  which  I  go  is  unknown  to  me 
and  my  family,  and  the  ways  and  means  of  subsist- 
ance.  .  .  . 

"  3d.  The  place  from  which  I  go  hath  fire,  fuel,  and 
all  provisions  for  man  and  beast,  laid  in  for  the  win- 
ter. .  .  .  The  house  I  have  builded  upon  very  damage- 
ful  conditions  to  myself,  out  of  love  for  the  college, 
taking  country  pay  in  lieu  of  bills  of  exchange  on 
England,  or  the  house  would  not  have  been  built.  .  .  . 

"4th.  The  persons,  all  beside  myself,  are  women 
and  children,  on  whom  little  help,  now  their  minds  lie 
under  the  actual  stroke  of  affliction  and  grief.  My 
wife  is  sick,  and  my  youngest  child  extremely  so,  and 
hath  been  for  months,  so  that  we  dare  not  carry  him 
out  of  doors,  yet  much  worse  now  than  before.  .  .  . 
Myself  will  willingly  bow  my  neck  to  any  yoke  of  per- 
1  Quincy's  History  of  Harvard,  i.  15. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  279 

sonal  denial,  for  I  know  for  what  and  for  whom,  by 
grace  I  suffer."  1 

He  had  before  asked  Winthrop  to  cause  the  gov- 
ernment to  pay  him  what  it  owed,  and  he  ended  his 
prayer  in  these  words :  "  Considering  the  poverty  of 
the  country,  I  am  willing  to  descend  to  the  lowest 
step ;  and  if  nothing  can  comfortably  be  allowed,  I  sit 
still  appeased ;  desiring  nothing  more  than  to  supply 
me  and  mine  with  food  and  raiment."  2  He  received 
that  mercy  which  the  church  has  ever  shown  to  those 
who  wander  from  her  fold ;  he  was  given  till  March, 
and  then,  with  dues  unpaid,  was  driven  forth  a  broken 
man,  to  die  in  poverty  and  neglect. 

But  Jonathan  Mitchell,  pondering  deeply  upon  the 
wages  he  saw  paid  at  his  very  hearthstone,  to  the  sin 
of  his  miserable  %old  friend,  snatched  his  own  soul  from 
Satan's  jaws.  And  thenceforward  his  path  lay  in 
pleasant  places,  and  he  prospered  exceedingly  in  the 
world,  so  that  "  of  extream  lean  he  grew  extream  fat ; 
and  at  last,  in  an  extream  hot  season,  a  fever  arrested 
him,  just  after  he  had  been  preaching.  .  .  .  Wonder- 
ful were  the  lamentations  which  this  deplorable  death 
fill'd  the  churches  of  New  England  withal.  .  .  .  Yea 
...  all  New  England  shook  when  that  pillar  fell  to 
the  ground."  3 

Notwithstanding,  therefore,  clerical  promises  of  gen- 
tleness, Massachusetts  was  not  a  comfortable  place  of 
residence  for  Baptists,  who,  for  the  most  part,  went  to 

1   History  of  Harvard,  i.  18.  2  Idem,  i.  20. 

8  Magnolia,  bk.  4,  ch.  iv.  §  16. 


280  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

Rhode  Island ;  and  John  Clark  l  became  the  pastor  of 
the  church  which  they  formed  at  Newport  about  1644. 
He  had  been  born  about  1610,  and  had  been  educated 
in  London  as  a  physician.  In  1637  he  landed  at  Bos- 
ton, where  he  seems  to  have  become  embroiled  in  the 
Antinomian  controversy ;  at  all  events,  he  fared  so  ill 
that,  with  several  others,  he  left  Massachusetts  *  re- 
solving, through  the  help  of  Christ,  to  get  clear  of  all 
[chartered  companies]  and  be  of  ourselves.'  In  the 
course  of  their  wanderings  they  fell  in  with  Williams, 
and  settled  near  him. 

Clark  was  perhaps  the  most  prominent  man  in  the 
Plantations,  filled  many  public  offices,  and  was  the 
commissioner  who  afterward  secured  for  the  colony 
the  famous  charter  that  served  as  the  State  Constitu- 
tion till  1842. 

Obediah  Holmes,  who  succeeded  him  as  Baptist 
minister  of  Newport,  is  less  well  known.  He  was  ed- 
ucated at  Oxford,  and  when  he  emigrated  he  settled 
at  Salem ;  from  thence  he  went  to  Seaconk,  where  he 
joined  the  church  under  Mr.  Newman.  Here  he  soon 
fell  into  trouble  for  resisting  what  he  maintained  was 
an  "  unrighteous  act  "  of  his  pastor's  ;  in  consequence 
he  and  several  more  renounced  the  communion,  and 
began  to  worship  by  themselves  ;  they  were  baptized 
and  thereafter  they  were  excommunicated ;  the  inev- 
itable indictment  followed,  and  they,  too,  took  refuge 
in  Rhode  Island.2 

1  For  sketch  of  Clark's  life  see  Allen's  Biographical  Dictionary. 

a  Holmes's  Narrative,  Backus,  i.  213. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  281 

William  Witter l  of  Lynn  was  an  aged  Baptist, 
who  had  already  been  prosecuted,  but,  in  1651,  being 
blind  and  infirm,  he  asked  the  Newport  church  to  send 
some  of  the  brethren  to  him,  to  administer  the  com- 
munion, for  he  found  himself  alone  in  Massachusetts.2 
Accordingly  Clark  undertook  the  mission,  with  Obe- 
diah  Holmes  and  John  Crandall. 

They  reached  Lynn  on  Saturday,  July  19,  1651, 
and  on  Sunday  stayed  within  doors  in  order  not  to 
disturb  the  congregation.  A  few  friends  were  pres- 
ent, and  Clark  was  in  the  midst  of  a  sermon,  when  the 
house  was  entered  by  two  constables  with  a  warrant 
signed  by  Robert  Bridges,  commanding  them  to  arrest 
certain  "  erroneous  persons  being  strangers."  The 
travellers  were  at  once  seized  and  carried  to  the  tav- 
ern, and  after  dinner  they  were  told  that  they  must 
go  to  church. 

Gorton,  like  many  another,  had  to  go  through  this 
ordeal,  and  he  speaks  of  his  Sundays  with  much  feel- 
ing :  "  Only  some  part  of  those  dayes  they  brought  us 
forth  into  their  congregations,  to  hear  their  sermons 
.  .  .  which  was  meat  to  be  digested,  but  only  by  the 
heart  or  stomacke  of  an  ostrich."  3 

The  unfortunate  Baptists  remonstrated,  saying  that 
were  they  forced  into  the  meeting-house,  they  should 
be  obliged  to  dissent  from  the  service,  but  this,  the 
constable  said,  was  nothing  to  him,  and  so  he  carried 

1  For  the  following  events,  see  "III  Newesfrom  New 
land"  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fourth  series,  vol.  ii. 

»  Backus,  i.  215. 

8  Simplicities  Defence,  p.  57. 


282  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

them  away.  On  entering,  during  the  prayer,  the  pris- 
oners took  off  their  hats,  but  presently  put  them  on 
again  and  began  reading  in  their  seats.  Whereupon 
Bridges  ordered  the  officers  to  uncover  their  heads, 
which  was  done,  and  the  service  was  then  quietly 
finished.  When  all  was  over,  Clark  asked  leave  to 
speak,  which,  after  some  hesitation,  was  granted,  on 
condition  he  would  not  discuss  what  he  had  heard. 
He  began  to  explain  how  he  had  put  on  his  hat  be- 
cause he  could  not  judge  that  they  were  gathered  ac- 
cording to  the  visible  order  of  the  Lord  ;  but  here  he 
was  silenced,  and  the  three  were  committed  to  custody 
for  the  night.  On  Tuesday  they  were  taken  to  Bos- 
ton, and  on  the  31st  were  brought  before  Governor 
Endicott.  Their  trial  was  of  the  kind  reserved  by 
priests  for  heretics.  No  jury  was  impanelled,  no  in- 
dictment was  read,  no  evidence  was  heard,  but  the 
prisoners  were  reviled  by  the  bench  as  Anabaptists, 
and  when  they  repudiated  the  name  were  asked  if 
they  did  not  deny  infant  baptism.  The  theological 
argument  which  followed  was  cut  short  by  a  recommit- 
ment to  await  sentence. 

That  afternoon  John  Cotton  exhorted  the  judges 
from  the  pulpit.  He  expounded  the  law,  and  com- 
manded them  to  do  their  duty ;  he  told  them  that 
the  rejection  of  infant  baptism  would  overthrow  the 
church  ;  that  this  was  a  capital  crime,  and  therefore 
the  captives  were  "  foul  murtherers."  l  Thus  inspired, 
the  court  came  in  toward  evening. 
i  III  Newes,  p.  66. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  283 

The  record  recites  a  number  of  misdemeanors,  such 
as  wearing  the  hat  in  church,  administering  the  com- 
munion to  the  excommunicated,  and  the  like,  but  no 
attempt  was  made  to  prove  a  single  charge.1  The 
reason  is  obvious :  the  only  penalty  provided  by  stat- 
ute for  the  offence  of  being  a  Baptist  was  banishment, 
hence  the  only  legal  course  would  have  been  to  dis- 
miss the  accused.  Endicott  condemned  them  to  fines 
of  twenty,  thirty,  and  five  pounds,  respectively,  or  to 
be  whipped.  Clark  understood  his  position  perfectly, 
and  from  the  first  had  demanded  to  be  shown  the  law 
under  which  he  was  being  tried.  He  now,  after  sen- 
tence, renewed  the  request.  Endicott  well  knew  that 
in  acting  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  clergy  he  was  vio- 
lating alike  justice,  his  oath  of  office,  and  his  honor 
as  a  judge;  and,  being  goaded  to  fury,  he  broke 
out :  You  have  deserved  death ;  I  will  not  have  such 
trash  brought  into  our  jurisdiction.2  Holmes  tells  the 
rest:  "As  I  went  from  the  bar,  I  exprest  myself  in 
these  words,  —  I  blesse  God  I  am  counted  worthy  to 
suffer  for  the  name  of  Jesus  ;  whereupon  John  Wilson 
(their  pastor,  as  they  call  him)  strook  me  before  the 
judgement  seat,  and  cursed  me,  saying,  The  curse  of 
God  .  .  .  goe  with  thee ;  so  we  were  carried  to  the 
prison."  3 

All  the  convicts  maintained  that  their  liberty  as 
English  subjects  had  been  violated,  and  they  refused 
to  pay  their  fines.  Clark's  friends,  however,  alarmed 
for  his  safety,  settled  his  for  him,  and  he  was  dis- 
charged. 

1  111  Newes,  pp.  31-^4.         *  Idem,  p.  33.        8  Idem,  p.  47. 


284  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

Crandall  was  admitted  to  bail,  but  being  mis- 
informed as  to  the  time  of  surrender,  he  did  not  ap- 
pear, his  bond  was  forfeited,  and  on  his  return  to 
Boston  he  found  himself  free. 

Thus  Holmes  was  left  to  face  his  punishment  alone. 
Actuated  apparently  by  a  deep  sense  of  duty  toward 
himself  and  his  God,  he  refused  the  help  of  friends, 
and  steadfastly  awaited  his  fate.  As  he  lay  in  prison 
he  suffered  keenly  as  he  thought  of  his  birth  and  breed- 
ing, his  name,  his  worldly  credit,  and  the  humiliation 
which  must  come  to  his  wife  and  children  from  his 
public  shame ;  then,  too,  he  began  to  fear  lest  he 
might  not  be  able  to  bear  the  lash,  might  flinch  or  shed 
tears,  and  bring  contempt  on  himself  and  his  religion. 
Yet  when  the  morning  came  he  was  calm  and  reso- 
lute ;  refusing  food  and  drink,  that  he  might  not  be 
said  to  be  sustained  by  liquor,  he  betook  himself  to 
prayer,  and  when  his  keeper  called  him,  with  his  Bi- 
ble in  his  hand,  he  walked  cheerfully  to  the  post.  He 
would  have  spoken  a  few  words,  but  the  magistrate  or- 
dered the  executioner  to  do  his  office  quickly,  for  this 
fellow  would  delude  the  people ;  then  he  was  seized 
and  stripped,  and  as  he  cried,  "  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin 
unto  their  charge,"  he  received  the  first  blow.1 

They  gave  him  thirty  lashes  with  a  three-thonged 
whip,  of  such  horrible  severity  that  it  was  many  days 
before  he  could  endure  to  have  his  lacerated  body 
touch  the  bed,  and  he  rested  propped  upon  his  hands 
and  knees.2  Yet,  in  spite  of  his  torture,  he  stood  firm 

1  111  Newes,  pp.  48,  56. 

2  Backus,    L  237,  note.     MS.  of  Gov.  Jos.  Jencks. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  285 

and  calm,  showing  neither  pain  nor  fear,  breaking  out 
at  intervals  into  praise  to  God ;  and  his  dignity  and 
courage  so  impressed  the  people  that,  in  spite  of  the 
danger,  numbers  flocked  about  him  when  he  was  set 
free,  in  sympathy  and  admiration.  John  Spur,  being 
inwardly  affected  by  what  he  saw  and  heard,  took 
him  by  the  hand,  and,  with  a  joyful  countenance, 
said :  "  Praised  be  the  Lord,"  and  so  went  back  with 
him.  That  same  day  Spur  was  arrested,  charged 
with  the  crime  of  succoring  a  heretic.  Then  said  the 
undaunted  Spur :  "  Obediah  Holmes  I  do  look  upon 
as  a  godly  man :  and  do  affirm  that  he  carried  himself 
as  did  become  a  Christian,  under  so  sad  an  affliction." 
"We  will  deal  with  you  as  we  have  dealt  with  him," 
said  Endicott.  "  I  am  in  the  hands  of  God,"  answered 
Spur ;  and  then  his  keeper  took  him  to  his  prison.1 

Perhaps  no  persecutor  ever  lived  who  was  actuated 
by  a  single  motive :  Saint  Dominic  probably  had  some 
trace  of  worldliness ;  Henry  VIII.  some  touch  of 
bigotry ;  and  this  was  preeminently  true  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts elders.  Doubtless  there  were  among  them 
men  like  Norton,  whose  fanaticism  was  so  fierce  that 
they  would  have  destroyed  the  heretic  like  the  wild 
beast,  as  a  child  of  the  devil,  and  an  abomination  to 
God.  But  with  the  majority  worldly  motives  predom- 
inated :  they  were  always  protesting  that  they  did  not 
constrain  men's  consciences,  but  only  enforced  orderly 
living.  Increase  Mather  declared :  in  "  the  same  church 
there  have  been  Presbyterians,  Independents,  Epis- 
1  111  Newes,  p.  57. 


286  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

copalians,  and  Antipaedobaptists,  all  welcome  to  the 
same  table  of  the  Lord  when  they  have  manifested  to 
the  judgment  of  Christian  charity  a  work  of  regener- 
ation in  their  souls."  l  And  Winslow  solemnly  assured 
Parliament,  "  Nay,  some  in  our  churches "  are  "  of 
that  judgment,  and  as  long  as  they  [Baptists]  carry 
themselves  peaceably  as  hitherto  they  doe,  wee  will 
leave  them  to  God."  2 

Such  statements,  although  intended  to  convey  a 
false  impression,  contained  this  much  truth :  provided 
a  man  conformed  to  all  the  regulations  of  the  church, 
paid  his  taxes,  and  held  his  tongue,  he  would  not,  in 
ordinary  circumstances,  have  been  molested  under  the 
Puritan  Commonwealth.  But  the  moment  he  refused 
implicit  obedience,  or,  above  all,  if  he  withdrew  from 
his  congregation,  he  was  shown  no  mercy,  because 
such  acts  tended  to  shake  the  temporal  power.  John 
Wilson,  pastor  of  Boston,  was  a  good  example  of  the 
average  of  his  order.  On  his  death-bed  he  was  asked 
to  declare  what  he  thought  to  be  the  worst  sins  of  the 
country.  " '  I  have  long  feared  several  sins,  whereof 
one,'  he  said,  '  was  Corahism :  that  is,  when  people 
rise  up  as  Corah  against  their  ministers,  as  if  they  took 
too  much  upon  them,  when  indeed  they  do  but  rule 
for  Christ,  and  according  to  Christ.'  "  8  Permeated 
with  this  love  of  power,  and  possessed  of  a  superb 
organization,  the  clergy  never  failed  to  act  on  public 

1  Vindication  of  New  Eng.  p.  19. 

3  Hypocrisie  Unmasked,  p.  101.     A.  D.  1646. 

«  Magnolia,  bk.  3,  ch.  iii.  §  17. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  287 

opinion  with  decisive  effect  whenever  they  saw  their 
worldly  interests  endangered.  Childe  has  described 
the  attack  which  overwhelmed  him,  and  Gorton  gives 
a  striking  account  of  their  process  of  inciting  a  cru- 
sade :  — 

"  These  things  concluded  to  be  heresies  and  blas- 
phemies. .  .  .  The  ministers  did  zealously  preach  unto 
the  people  the  great  danger  of  such  things,  and  the 
guilt  such  lay  under  that  held  them,  stirring  the  people 
up  to  labour  to  find  such  persons  out  and  to  execute 
death  upon  them,  making  persons  so  execrable  in  the 
eyes  of  the  people,  whom  they  intimated  should  hold 
such  things,  yea  some  of  them  naming  some  of  us  in 
their  pulpits,  that  the  people  that  had  not  seen  us 
thought  us  to  be  worse  by  far  in  any  respect  then  those 
barbarous  Indians  are  in  the  country.  .  .  .  Where- 
upon we  heard  a  rumor  that  the  Massachusets  was 
sending  out  an  army  of  men  to  cut  us  off."  1 

The  persecution  of  the  Baptists  lays  bare  this  self- 
ish clerical  policy.  The  theory  of  the  suppression  of 
heresy  as  a  sacred  duty  breaks  down  when  it  is  con- 
ceded that  the  heretic  may  be  admitted  to  the  ortho- 
dox communion  without  sin  ;  therefore  the  motives 
for  cruelty  were  sordid.  The  ministers  felt  instinct- 
ively that  an  open  toleration  would  impair  their  power  ; 
not  only  because  the  congregations  would  divide,  but 
because  these  sectaries  listened  to  "  John  Russell  the 
shoemaker."  2  Obviously,  were  cobblers  to  usurp  the 
sacerdotal  functions,  the  superstitious  reverence  of  the 
1  Simplicity's  Defence,  p.  32.  2  Ne  Sutor,  p.  26. 


288  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

people  for  the  priestly  office  would  not  long  endure : 
and  it  was  his  crime  in  upholding  this  sacrilegious 
practice  which  made  the  Rev.  Thomas  Cobbett  cry 
out  in  his  pulpit  "  against  Gorton,  that  arch-heretick, 
who  would  have  al  men  to  be  preachers." 1 

Therefore,  though  Winslow  solemnly  protested  be- 
fore the  Commissioners  at  London  that  Baptists  who 
lived  peaceably  would  be  left  unmolested,  yet  such  of 
them  as  listened  to  "  foul-murtherers " 2  were  de- 
nounced by  the  divines  as  dangerous  fanatics  who 
threatened  to  overthrow  the  government,  and  were 
hunted  through  the  country  like  wolves. 

Thomas  Gould  was  an  esteemed  citizen  of  Charles- 
town,  but,  unfortunately  for  himself,  he  had  long  felt 
doubt  concerning  infant  baptism ;  so  when,  in  1655, 
a  child  was  born  to  him,  he  "  durst  not "  have  it 
christened.  "  The  elder  pressed  the  church  to  lay  me 
under  admonition,  which  the  church  was  backward 
to  do.  Afterward  I  went  out  at  the  sprinkling  of 
children,  which  was  a  great  trouble  to  some  honest 
hearts,  and  they  told  me  of  it.  But  I  told  them  I 
could  not  stay,  for  I  lookt  upon  it  as  no  ordinance  of 
Christ.  They  told  me  that  now  I  had  made  known 
my  judgment  I  might  stay.  .  .  .  So  I  stayed  and  sat 
down  in  my  seat  when  they  were  at  prayer  and  ad- 
ministring  the  service  to  infants.  Then  they  dealt 
with  me  for  my  unreverent  carriage."  3  That  is  to 

1  Simplicities  Defence,  p.  32.     See  Ne  Sutor,  p.  26. 

2  "  III  Newes,"  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fourth  series,  vol.  ii.  p.  56. 
«  Gould's  Narrative,  Backus,  i.  364-366. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  289 

say,  his  pastor,  Mr.  Symmes,  caused  him  to  be  admon- 
ished and  excluded  from  the  communion.  In  Octo- 
ber, 1656,  he  was  presented  to  the  county  court  for 
"  denying  baptism  to  his  child,"  convicted,  admon- 
ished, and  given  till  the  next  term  to  consider  of  his 
error ;  and  gradually  his  position  at  Charlestown  be- 
came so  unpleasant  that  he  went  to  church  at  Cam- 
bridge, which  was  a  cause  of  fresh  offence  to  Mr. 
Symmes.1 

From  this  time  forward  for  several  years,  though 
no  actual  punishment  seems  to  have  been  inflicted, 
Gould  was  subjected  to  perpetual  annoyance,  and  was 
repeatedly  summoned  and  admonished,  both  by  the 
courts  and  the  church,  until  at  length  he  brought  mat- 
ters to  a  crisis  by  withdrawing,  and  with  eight  others 
forming  a  church,  on  May  28,  1665. 

He  thus  tells  his  story :  "  We  sought  the  Lord 
to  direct  us,  and  taking  counsel  of  other  friends  who 
dwelt  among  us,  who  were  able  and  godly,  they  gave 
us  counsel  to  congregate  ourselves  together  ;  and  so 
we  did,  ...  to  walk  in  the  order  of  the  gospel  ac- 
cording to  the  rule  of  Christ,  yet  knowing  it  was  a 
breach  of  the  law  of  this  country.  .  .  .  After  we  had 
been  called  into  one  or  two  courts,  the  church  under- 
stand ing  that  we  were  gathered  into  church  order,  they 
sent  three  messengers  from  the  church  to  me,  telling 
me  the  church  required  me  to  come  before  them  the 
next  Lord's  day."  2  That  Sunday  he  could  not  go, 

1  History  of  Charlestown,  Frothingham,  p.  164. 

2  Gould's  Narrative,  Backus,  i.  369. 


290  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

but  he  promised  to  attend  on  the  one  following  ; 1  and 
his  wife  relates  what  was  then  done :  "  The  word  was 
carried  to  the  elder,  that  if  they  were  alive  and  well 
they  would  come  the  next  day,  yet  they  were  so  hot 
upon  it  that  they  could  not  stay,  but  master  Sims, 
when  he  was  laying  out  the  sins  of  these  men,  before 
he  had  propounded  it  to  the  church,  to  know  their 
mind,  the  church  having  no  liberty  to  speak,  he 
wound  it  up  in  his  discourse,  and  delivered  them  up 
to  Satan,  to  the  amazement  of  the  people,  that  ever 
such  an  ordinance  of  Christ  should  be  so  abused,  that 
many  of  the  people  went  out;  and  these  were  the 
excommunicated  persons."  2  The  sequence  is  com- 
plete :  so  long  as  Gould  confined  his  heresy  to  pure 
speculation  upon  dogma  he  was  little  heeded;  when 
he  withheld  his  child  from  baptism  and  went  out 
during  the  ceremony  he  was  admonished,  denied  the 
sacrament,  and  treated  as  a  social  outcast ;  but  when 
he  separated,  he  was  excommunicated  and  given  to 
the  magistrate  to  be  crushed. 

Passing  from  one  tribunal  to  another  the  sectaries 
came  before  the  General  Court  in  October,  1665  : 
such  as  were  freemen  were  disfranchised,  and  all  were 
sentenced,  upon  conviction  before  a  single  magistrate 
of  continued  schism,  to  be  imprisoned  until  further 
order.3  The  following  April  they  were  fined  four 
pounds  and  put  in  confinement,  where  they  lay  till 

1  Gould's  Narrative,  Backus,  i.  371. 

2  Mrs.  Gould's  Answer,  Backus,  i.  3M. 
8  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  291. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  291 

the  llth  of  September,  when  the  legislature,  after  a 
hearing,  ordered  them  to  be  discharged  upon  payment 
of  fines  and  costs.1 

How  many  Baptists  were  prosecuted,  and  what  they 
suffered,  is  not  known,  as  only  an  imperfect  record 
remains  of  the  fortunes  of  even  the  leaders  of  the 
movement;  this  much,  however,  is  certain,  they  not 
only  continued  contumacious,  but  persecution  added  to 
their  numbers.  So  at  length  the  clergy  decided  to  try 
what  effect  a  public  refutation  of  these  heretics  would 
have  on  popular  opinion.  Accordingly  the  governor 
and  council,  actuated  by  "  Christian  candor,"  ordered 
the  Baptists  to  appear  at  the  meeting-house,  at  nine 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  the  14th  of  April,  1668 ; 
and  six  ministers  were  deputed  to  conduct  the  dispu- 
tation.2 

During  the  immolation  of  Dunster  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Mitchell  had  made  up  his  mind  that  he  "  would  have 
an  argument  able  to  remove  a  mountain  "  before  he 
would  swerve  from  his  orthodoxy ;  he  had  since  con- 
firmed his  faith  by  preaching  "  more  than  half  a  score 
ungainsayable  sermons "  "  in  defence  of  this  comfort- 
able truth,"  and  he  was  now  prepared  to  maintain  it 
against  all  comers.  Accordingly  this  "  worthy  man 
was  he  who  did  most  service  in  this  disputation ; 
whereof  the  effect  was,  that  although  the  erring  breth- 
ren, as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  made  this  their  last 
answer  to  the  arguments  which  had  cast  them  into 
much  confusion  :  '  Say  what  you  will  we  will  hold  our 

1  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  316.  2  Backus,  i.  375. 


292  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

mind.'  Yet  others  were  happily  established  in  the 
right  ways  of  the  Lord."  x 

Such  is  the  account  of  Cotton  Mather:  but  the 
story  of  the  Baptists  presents  a  somewhat  different 
view  of  the  proceedings.  "It  is  true  there  were 
seven  elders  appointed  to  discourse  with  them  .  .  . 
and  when  they  were  met,  there  was  a  long  speech  made 
by  one  of  them  of  what  vile  persons  they  were,  and 
how  they  acted  against  the  churches  and  government 
here,  and  stood  condemned  by  the  court.  The  others 
desiring  liberty  to  speak,  they  would  not  suffer  them, 
but  told  them  they  stood  there  as  delinquents  and 
ought  not  to  have  liberty  to  speak.  .  .  .  Two  days 
were  spent  to  little  purpose;  in  the  close,  master 
Jonathan  Mitchel  pronounced  that  dreadful  sentence 
against  them  in  Deut.  xvii.  8,  to  the  end  of  the  12th, 
and  this  was  the  way  they  took  to  convince  them,  and 
you  may  see  what  a  good  effect  it  had."  2 

The  sentence  pronounced  by  Mitchell  was  this: 
"  And  the  man  that  will  do  presumptuously,  and  will 
not  hearken  unto  the  priest  that  standeth  to  minister 
there  before  the  Lord  thy  God,  or  unto  the  judge, 
even  that  man  shall  die  :  and  thou  shalt  put  away  the 
evil  from  Israel."  3 

On  the  27th  of  May,  1668,  Gould,  Turner,  and  Far- 
num,  "  obstinate  &  turbulent  Annabaptists,"  were  ban- 
ished under  pain  of  perpetual  imprisonment.4  They 

1  Magnolia,  bk.  4,  ch.  iv.  §  10. 

2  Mrs.  Gould's  Answer,  Backus,  i.  384,  385. 

8  Deut.  xvii.  12.        *  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  ii,  pp.  373-575. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  293 

determined  to  stay  and  face  their  fate :  afterward  they 
wrote  to  the  magistrates  :  — 

HONOURED  SIRS  :  .  .  .  After  the  tenders  of  our 
service  according  to  Christ,  his  command  to  your 
selves  and  the  country,  wee  thought  it  our  duty  and 
concernment  to  present  your  honours  with  these  few 
lines  to  put  you  in  remembrance  of  our  bonds:  and 
this  being  the  twelfth  week  of  our  imprisonment,  wee 
should  be  glad  if  it  might  be  thought  to  stand  with 
the  honour  and  safety  of  the  country,  and  the  present 
government  thereof,  to  be  now  at  liberty.  For  wee 
doe  hereby  seriously  profess,  that  as  farre  as  wee  are 
sensible  or  know  anything  of  our  own  hearts,  wee  do 
prefer  their  peace  and  safety  above  our  own,  however 
wee  have  been  resented  otherwise :  and  wherein  wee 
differ  in  point  of  judgment  wee  humbly  beeseech  you, 
let  there  be  a  bearing  with  us,  till  god  shal  reveale 
otherwise  to  us ;  for  there  is  a  spirit  in  man  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth  them  understand- 
ing, therefore  if  wee  are  in  the  dark,  wee  dare  not 
say  that  wee  doe  see  or  understand,  till  the  Lord  shall 
cleare  things  up  to  us.  And  to  him  wee  can  appeale 
to  cleare  up  our  innocency  as  touching  the  govern- 
ment, both  in  your  civil  and  church  affaires.  That  it 
never  was  in  our  hearts  to  thinke  of  doing  the  least 
wrong  to  either  :  but  have  and  wee  hope,  by  your  as- 
sistance, shal  alwaies  indeavour  to  keepe  a  conscience 
void  of  offence  towards  god  and  men.  And  if  it  shal 
be  thought  meete  to  afforde  us  our  liberty,  that  wee 


294  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

may  take  that  care,  as  becomes  us,  for  our  families, 
wee  shal  engage  ourselves  to  be  alwayes  in  a  readi- 
nes  to  resigne  up  our  persons  to  your  pleasure.  Hop- 
ing your  honours  will  be  pleased  seriously  to  consider 
our  condition,  wee  shall  commend  both  you  and  it  to 
the  wise  disposing  and  blessing  of  the  Almighty,  and 
remaine  your  honours  faithful  servants  in  what  we 
may. 

THO  :  GOLD 
WILL:  TURNER 
JOHN 


Such  were  the  men  whom  the  clergy  daily  warned 
their  congregations  "  would  certainly  undermine  the 
churches,  ruine  order,  destroy  piety,  and  introduce  pro- 
phaneness."  2  And  when  they  appealed  to  their  spot- 
less lives  and  their  patience  under  affliction,  they  were 
told  "  that  the  vilest  hereticks  and  grossest  blasphem- 
ers have  resolutely  and  cheerfully  (at  least  sullenly 
and  boastingly)  suffered  as  well  as  the  people  of 
God."  3 

The  feeling  of  indignation  and  of  sympathy  was, 
notwithstanding,  strong  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  danger  of 
succoring  heretics,  sixty-six  inhabitants,  among  whom 
were  some  of  the  most  respected  citizens  of  Charles- 
town,  petitioned  the  legislature  for  mercy  :  "  They  be- 
ing aged  and  weakly  men  ;  ...  the  sense  of  this  their 
,  .  .  most  deplorable  and  afflicted  condition  hath 
1  Mass.  Archives,  x.  220.  2  Ne  Sutor,  p.  11. 

8  Ne  Sutor,  p.  9. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  295 

Badly  affected  the  hearts  of  many  .  .  .  Christians,  and 
such  as  neither  approve  of  their  judgment  or  prac- 
tice ;  especially  considering  that  the  men  are  reputed 
godly,  and  of  a  blameless  conversation.  .  .  .  We 
therefore  most  humbly  beseech  this  honored  court,  in 
their  Christian  mercy  and  bowels  of  compassion,  to 
pity  and  relieve  these  poor  prisoners."  1  On  Novem- 
ber 7,  1668,  the  petition  was  voted  "  scandalous  &  re- 
proachful," the  two  chief  promoters  were  censured, 
admonished,  and  fined  ten  and  five  pounds  respec- 
tively ;  the  others  were  made,  under  their  own  hands, 
to  express  their  sorrow,  "  for  giving  the  court  such 
just  ground  of  offence."  2 

The  shock  was  felt  even  in  England.  In  March, 
1669,  thirteen  of  the  most  influential  dissenting  min- 
isters wrote  from  London  earnestly  begging  for  mod- 
eration lest  they  should  be  made  to  suffer  from  re- 
taliation ;  but  their  remonstrance  was  disregarded.3 
What  followed  is  not  exactly  known ;  the  convicts 
would  seem  to  have  lain  in  jail  about  a  year,  and  they 
are  next  mentioned  in  a  letter  to  Clark  written  in  No- 
vember, 1670,  in  which  he  was  told  that  Turner  had 
been  again  arrested,  but  that  Gould  had  eluded  the 
officers,  who  were  waiting  for  him  in  Boston  ;  and  was 
on  Noddle's  Island.  Subsequently  all  were  taken  and 
treated  with  the  extremest  rigor ;  for  in  June,  1672, 
Russell  was  so  reduced  that  it  was  supposed  he  could 
not  live,  and  he  was  reported  to  have  died  in  prison. 

i  Backus,  i.  380,  381.  »  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  4ia 

8  Backus,  i.  395. 


296  THE  ANABAPTISTS. 

Six  months  before  Gould  and  Turner  had  been  thought 
past  hope ;  their  sufferings  had  brought  them  all  to 
the  brink  of  the  grave.1  But  relief  was  at  hand ;  the 
victory  for  freedom  had  been  won  by  the  blood  of 
heretics,  as  devoted,  as  fearless,  but  even  unhappier 
than  they ;  and  the  election  of  Leverett,  in  1673,  who 
v/as  opposed  to  persecution,  marks  the  moment  when 
the  hierarchy  admitted  their  defeat.  During  his  ad- 
ministration the  sectaries  usually  met  in  private  un- 
disturbed ;  and  soon  every  energy  of  the  theocracy 
became  concentrated  on  the  effort  to  repulse  the  ever 
contracting  circle  of  enemies  who  encompassed  it. 

During  the  next  few  years  events  moved  fast.  In 
1678  the  ecclesiastical  power  was  so  shattered  that  the 
Baptists  felt  strong  enough  to  build  a  church ;  but  the 
old  despotic  spirit  lived  even  in  the  throes  of  death, 
and  the  legislature  passed  an  act  forbidding  the  erec- 
tion of  unlicensed  meeting-houses  under  penalty  of 
confiscation.  Nevertheless  it  was  finished,  but  on  the 
Sunday  on  which  it  was  to  have  been  opened  the  mar- 
shal nailed  the  doors  fast  and  posted  notices  forbid- 
ding all  persons  to  enter,  by  order  of  the  court.  After 
a  time  the  doors  were  broken  open,  and  services  were 
held  ;  a  number  of  the  congregation  were  summoned 
before  the  court,  admonished,  and  forbidden  to  meet 
in  any  public  place ; 2  but  the  handwriting  was  now 
glowing  on  the  wall,  priestly  threats  had  lost  their 
terror ;  the  order  was  disregarded ;  and  now  for  al- 

1  Backus,  i.  398-404,  405. 

2  June  11,  1680.     Mass.  Rec.  v.  271. 


THE  ANABAPTISTS.  297 

most  two  hundred  years  Massachusetts  has  been  fore- 
most in  defending  the  equal  rights  of  men  before  the 
law. 

The  old  world  was  passing  away,  a  new  era  was 
opening,  and  a  few  words  are  due  to  that  singular 
aristocracy  which  so  long  ruled  New  England.  For 
two  centuries  Increase  Mather  has  been  extolled  as  an 
eminent  example  of  the  abilities  and  virtues  which  then 
adorned  his  order.  In  1681,  when  all  was  over,  he 
published  a  solemn  statement  of  the  attitude  the  clergy 
had  held  toward  the  Baptists,  and  from  his  words  pos- 
terity may  judge  of  their  standard  of  morality  and  of 
truth. 

"  The  Annabaptists  in  New  England  have  in  their 
narrative  lately  published,  endeavoured  to  ...  make 
themselves  the  innocent  persons  and  the  Lord's  ser- 
vants here  no  better  than  persecutors.  ...  I  have 
been  a  poor  labourer  in  the  Lord's  Vineyard  in  this 
place  upward  of  twenty  years ;  and  it  is  more  than  I 
know,  if  in  all  that  time,  any  of  those  that  scruple 
infant  baptism,  have  met  with  molestation  from  the 
magistrate  merely  on  account  of  their  opinion."  1 
1  Preface  to  Ne  Sutor. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE   QUAKERS. 

THE  lower  the  organism,  the  less  would  seem  to  be 
the  capacity  for  physical  adaptation  to  changed  con- 
ditions of  life ;  the  jelly-fish  dies  in  the  aquarium,  the 
dog  has  wandered  throughout  the  world  with  his  mas- 
ter. The  same  principle  apparently  holds  true  in 
the  evolution  of  the  intellect;  for  while  the  oyster 
lacks  consciousness,  the  bee  modifies  the  structure  of 
its  comb,  and  the  swallow  of  her  nest,  to  suit  unforeseen 
contingencies,  while  the  dog,  the  horse,  and  the  ele- 
phant are  capable  of  a  high  degree  of  education.1 

Applying  this  law  to  man,  it  will  be  found  to  be  a 
fact  that,  whereas  the  barbarian  is  most  tenacious  of 
custom,  the  European  can  adopt  new  fashions  with 
comparative  ease.  The  obvious  inference  is,  that  in 
proportion  as  the  brain  is  feeble  it  is  incapable  of  the 
effort  of  origination ;  therefore,  savages  are  the  slaves 
of  routine.  Probably  a  stronger  nervous  system,  or  a 
peculiarity  of  environment,  or  both  combined,  served 
to  excite  impatience  with  their  surroundings  among 
the  more  favored  races,  from  whence  came  a  desire  for 
innovation.  And  the  mental  flexibility  thus  slowly 
developed  has  passed  by  inheritance,  and  has  been 
1  Menial  Ecolution  in  Animals,  Romanes,  Am.  ed.  pp.  203-210. 


THE   QUAKERS.  299 

strengthened  by  use,  until  the  tendency  to  vary,  or 
think  independently,  has  become  an  irrepressible  in- 
stinct among  some  modern  nations.  Conservatism  is 
the  converse  of  Variation,  and  as  it  springs  from  men- 
tal ineivtia  it  is  always  a  progressively  salient  charac- 
teristic of  each  group  in  the  descending  scale.  The 
Spaniard  is  less  mutable  than  the  Englishman,  the 
Hindoo  than  the  Spaniard,  the  Hottentot  than  the 
Hindoo,  and  the  ape  than  the  Hottentot.  Therefore, 
a  power  whose  existence  depends  upon  the  fixity  of 
custom  must  be  inimical  to  progress,  but  the  authority 
of  a  sacred  caste  is  altogether  based  upon  an  unreason- 
ing reverence  for  tradition,  —  in  short,  on  superstition ; 
and  as  free  inquiry  is  fatal  to  a  belief  in  those  fables 
which  awed  the  childhood  of  the  race,  it  has  followed 
that  established  priesthoods  have  been  almost  uni- 
formly the  most  conservative  of  social  forces,  and  that 
clergymen  have  seldom  failed  to  slay  their  variable 
brethren  when  opportunity  has  offered.  History  teems 
with  such  slaughters,  some  of  the  most  instructive  of 
which  are  related  in  the  Old  Testament,  whose  code  of 
morals  is  purely  theological. 

Though  there  may  be  some  question  as  to  the  strict 
veracity  of  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Kings,  yet,  as  he 
was  evidently  a  thorough  churchman,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  has  faithfully  preserved  the  traditions 
of  the  hierarchy ;  his  chronicle  therefore  presents,  as 
it  were,  a  perfect  mirror,  wherein  are  reflected  the 
workings  of  the  ecclesiastical  mind  through  many  gen- 
erations. According  to  his  account,  the  theocracy  only 


300  THE   QUAKERS. 

triumphed  after  a  long  and  doubtful  struggle.  Sam- 
uel must  have  been  an  exceptionally  able  man,  for, 
though  he  failed  to  control  Saul,  it  was  through  his  in- 
trigues that  David  was  enthroned,  who  was  profoundly 
orthodox ;  yet  Solomon  lapsed  again  into  heresy,  and 
Jeroboam  added  to  schism  the  even  blacker  crime  of 
making  "  priests  of  the  lowest  of  the  people,  which 
were  not  of  the  sons  of  Levi," l  and  in  consequence  he 
has  come  down  to  posterity  as  the  man  who  made 
Israel  to  sin.  Ahab  married  Jezebel,  who  introduced 
the  worship  of  Baal,  and  gave  the  support  of  govern- 
ment to  a  rival  church.  She  therefore  roused  a  hate 
which  has  made  her  immortal ;  but  it  was  not  until 
the  reign  of  her  son  Jehoram  that  Elisha  apparently 
felt  strong  enough  to  execute  a  plot  he  had  made  with 
one  of  the  generals  to  precipitate  a  revolution,  in  which 
the  whole  of  the  house  of  Ahab  should  be  murdered 
and  the  heretics  exterminated.  The  awful  story  is 
told  with  wonderful  power  in  the  Bible. 

"  And  Elisha  the  prophet  called  one  of  the  children 
of  the  prophets,  and  said  unto  him,  Gird  up  thy 
loins,  and  take  this  box  of  oil  in  thine  hand,  and  go 
to  Ramoth-gilead :  and  when  thou  comest  thither, 
look  out  there  Jehu,  .  .  .  and  make  him  arise  up 
.  .  .  and  carry  him  to  an  inner  chamber ;  then  take 
the  box  of  oil,  and  pour  it  on  his  head,  and  say, 
Thus  saith  the  Lord,  I  have  anointed  thee  king  over 
Israel.  .  .  . 

"  So  the  young  man  .  .  .  went  to  Ramoth-gilead. 
1  1  Kings  xii.  31. 


THE   QUAKERS.  301 

.  .  .  And  he  said,  I  have  an  errand  to  thee,  O  cap^ 
tain.  .  .  . 

"  And  he  arose,  and  went  into  the  house ;  and  he 
poured  the  oil  on  his  head,  and  said  unto  him,  Thus 
saith  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  I  have  anointed  thee 
king  over  the  people  of  the  Lord,  even  over  Israel. 

"  And  thou  shalt  smite  the  house  of  Ahab  thy  mas- 
ter, that  I  may  avenge  the  blood  of  my  servants  the 
prophets.  .  .  . 

"  For  the  whole  house  of  Ahab  shall  perish :  .  .  . 
and  I  will  make  the  house  of  Ahab  like  the  house  of 
Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat,  .  .  .  and  the  dogs  shall 
eat  Jezebel.  .  .  . 

"  Then  Jehu  came  forth  to  the  servants  of  his  lord  : 
.  .  .  And  he  said,  Thus  spake  he  to  me,  saying, 
Thus  saith  the  Lord,  1  have  anointed  thee  king  over 
Israel. 

"  Then  they  hasted,  .  .  .  and  blew  with  trumpets, 
saying,  Jehu  is  king.  So  Jehu  .  .  .  conspired  against 
Joram.  .  .  . 

"  But  king  Joram  was  returned  to  be  healed  in  Jez- 
reel  of  the  wounds  which  the  Syrians  had  given  him, 
when  he  fought  with  Hazael  king  of  Syria.  .  .  . 

"  So  Jehu  rode  in  a  chariot,  and  went  to  Jezreel ; 
for  Joram  lay  there.  .  .  . 

"  And  Joram  .  .  .  went  out  ...  in  his  chariot,  .  .  . 
against  Jehu.  .  .  .  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Joram 
saw  Jehu,  that  he  said,  Is  it  peace,  Jehu  ?  And  he 
answered,  What  peace,  so  long  as  the  whoredoms  of 
thy  mother  Jezebel  and  her  witchcrafts  are  so  many  ? 


302  THE   QUAKERS. 

"  And  Joram  turned  his  hands,  and  fled,  and  said  to 
Ahaziah,  There  is  treachery,  O  Ahaziah. 

"  And  Jehu  drew  a  bow  with  his  full  strength,  and 
smote  Jehoram  between  his  arms,  and  the  arrow  went 
out  at  his  heart,  and  he  sunk  down  in  his  chariot.  .  .  . 

"  But  when  Ahaziah  the  king  of  Judah  saw  this,  he 
fled  by  the  way  of  the  garden  house.  And  Jehu  fol- 
lowed after  him,  and  said,  Smite  him  also  in  the 
chariot.  And  they  did  so.  ... 

"And  when  Jehu  was  come  to  Jezreel,  Jezebel 
heard  of  it ;  and  she  painted  her  face,  and  tired  her 
head,  and  looked  out  at  a  window. 

"  And  as  Jehu  entered  in  at  the  gate,  she  said,  Had 
Zimri  peace,  who  slew  his  master  ?  .  .  . 

"  And  he  said,  Throw  her  down.  So  they  threw  her 
down :  and  some  of  her  blood  was  sprinkled  on  the 
wall,  and  on  the  horses :  and  he  trod  her  under 
foot.  .  .  . 

"  And  Ahab  had  seventy  sons  in  Samaria.  And 
Jehu  wrote  letters,  ...  to  the  elders,  and  to  them 
that  brought  up  Ahab's  children,  saying,  ...  If  ye 
be  mine,  .  .  .  take  ye  the  heads  of  ...  your  mas- 
ter's sons,  and  come  to  me  to  Jezreel  by  to-morrow 
this  time.  .  .  .  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  letter 
came  to  them,  that  they  took  the  king's  sons,  and 
slew  seventy  persons,  and  put  their  heads  in  baskets, 
and  sent  him  them  to  Jezreel.  .  .  . 

"  And  he  said,  Lay  ye  them  in  two  heaps  at  the  en- 
tering in  of  the  gate  until  the  morning.  .  .  . 

"  So  Jehu  slew  all  that  remained  of  the  house  of 


THE  QUAKERS.  303 

Ahab  in  Jezreel,  and  all  his  great  men,  and  his  kins- 
folks, and  his  priests,  until  he  left  him  none  remaining. 

"  And  he  arose  and  departed,  and  came  to  Samaria. 
And  as  he  was  at  the  shearing  house  in  the  way,  Jehu 
met  with  the  brethren  of  Ahaziah  king  of  Judah.  .  .  . 

"And  he  said,  Take  them  alive.  And  they  took 
them  alive,  and  slew  them  at  the  pit  of  the  shearing 
house,  even  two  and  forty  men ;  neither  left  he  any  of 
them.  .  .  . 

"  And  when  he  came  to  Samaria,  he  slew  all  that  re- 
mained unto  Ahab  in  Samaria,  till  he  had  destroyed 
him,  according  to  the  saying  of  the  Lord,  which  he 
spake  to  Elijah. 

"  And  Jehu  gathered  all  the  people  together,  and 
said  unto  them,  Ahab  served  Baal  a  little ;  but  Jehu 
shall  serve  him  much.  Now  therefore  call  unto  me 
all  the  prophets  of  Baal,  all  his  servants,  and  all  his 
priests ;  let  none  be  wanting :  for  I  have  a  great  sac- 
rifice to  do  to  Baal ;  whosoever  shall  be  wanting, 
he  shall  not  live.  But  Jehu  did  it  in  subtilty,  to 
the  intent  that  he  might  destroy  the  worshippers  of 
Baal.  .  .  . 

"  And  Jehu  sent  through  all  Israel :  and  all  the  wor- 
shippers of  Baal  came,  so  that  there  was  not  a  man 
left  that  came  not.  And  they  came  into  the  house  of 
Baal ;  and  the  house  of  Baal  was  full  from  one  end  to 
another.  .  .  . 

"  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  soon  as  he  had  made  an 
end  of  offering  the  burnt  offering,  that  Jehu  said  to 
the  guard  and  to  the  captains,  Go  in,  and  slay  themj 


304  THE   QUAKERS. 

let  none  come  forth.  And  they  smote  them  with  the 
edge  of  the  sword;  and  the  guard  and  the  captains 
cast  them  out.  .  .  . 

"  Thus  Jehu  destroyed  Baal  out  of  Israel."  1 
Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  comparative  history, 
the  policy  of  theocratic  Massachusetts  toward  the 
Quakers  was  the  necessary  consequence  of  antecedent 
causes,  and  is  exactly  parallel  with  the  massacre  of 
the  house  of  Ahab  by  Elisha  and  Jehu.  The  power 
of  a  dominant  priesthood  depended  on  conformity, 
and  the  Quakers  absolutely  refused  to  conform ;  nor 
was  this  the  blackest  of  their  crimes :  they  believed 
that  the  Deity  communicated  directly  with  men,  and 
that  these  revelations  were  the  highest  rule  of  con- 
duct. Manifestly  such  a  doctrine  was  revolutionary. 
The  influence  of  all  ecclesiastics  must  ultimately  rest 
upon  the  popular  belief  that  they  are  endowed  with 
attributes  which  are  denied  to  common  men.  The  syl- 
logism of  the  New  England  elders  was  this :  all  rev- 
elation is  contained  in  the  Bible ;  we  alone,  from  our 
peculiar  education,  are  capable  of  interpreting  the 
meaning  of  the  Scriptures  :  therefore  we  only  can  de- 
clare the  will  of  God.  But  it  was  evident  that,  were 
the  dogma  of  "  the  inner  light "  once  accepted,  this 
reasoning  must  fall  to  the  ground,  and  the  authority 
of  the  ministry  be  overthrown.  Necessarily  those  who 
held  so  subversive  a  doctrine  would  be  pursued  with 
greater  hate  than  less  harmful  heretics,  and  thus  con- 
templating the  situation  there  is  no  difficulty  in  un- 
derstanding why  the  Rev.  John  Wilson,  pastor  of 
1  2  Kings  ix.,  x. 


THE   QUAKERS.  305 

Boston,  should  have  vociferated  in  his  pulpit, that  "he 
would  carry  fire  in  one  hand  and  faggots  in  the  other, 
to  burn  all  the  Quakers  in  the  world  ;  "  l  why  the  Rev. 
John  Higginson  should  have  denounced  the  "  inner 
light "  as  "a  stinking  vapour  from  hell ;  " 2  why  the 
astute  Norton  should  have  taught  that  "the  justice  of 
God  was  the  devil's  armour ;  " 8  and  why  Endicott 
sternly  warned  the  first  comers,  "  Take  heed  you 
break  not  our  ecclesiastical  laws,  for  then  ye  are  sure 
to  stretch  by  a  halter."  4 

Nevertheless,  this  view  has  not  commended  itself  to 
those  learned  clergymen  who  have  been  the  chief  his- 
torians of  the  Puritan  commonwealth.  They  have,  on 
the  contrary,  steadily  maintained  that  the  sectaries 
were  the  persecutors,  since  the  company  had  exclusive 
ownership  of  the  soil,  and  acted  in  self-defence. 

The  case  of  Roger  Williams  is  thus  summed  up  by 
Dr.  Dexter :  "  In  all  strictness  and  honesty  he  per- 
secuted them  —  not  they  him  ;  just  as  the  modern 
'  Gome-outer,'  who  persistently  intrudes  his  bad  man- 
ners and  pestering  presence  upon  some  private  com- 
pany, making  himself,  upon  pretence  of  conscience,  a 
nuisance  there  ;  is  —  if  sane  —  the  persecutor,  rather 
than  the  man  who  forcibly  assists,  as  well  as  courte- 
ously requires,  his  desired  departure."  6 

i  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  124. 

3  Truth  and  Innocency  Defended,  ed.  1703,  p.  80. 
8  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  9. 

4  Idem,  p.  9. 

*  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  90. 


306  THE   QUAKERS. 

Dr.  Ellis  makes  a  similar  argument  regarding  the 
Quakers :  "  It  might  appear  as  if  good  manners,  and 
generosity  and  magnanimity  of  spirit,  would  have 
kept  the  Quakers  away.  Certainly,  by  every  rule  of 
right  and  reason,  they  ought  to  have  kept  away.  They 
had  no  rights  or  business  here.  .  .  .  Most  clearly  they 
courted  persecution,  suffering,  and  death ;  and,  as  the 
magistrates  affirmed,  'they  rushed  upon  the  sword.' 
Those  magistrates  never  intended  them  harm, ...  ex- 
cept as  they  believed  that  all  their  successive  measures 
and  sharper  penalties  were  positively  necessary  to  se- 
cure their  jurisdiction  from  the  wildest  lawlessness 
and  absolute  anarchy."  l  His  conclusion  is :  "  It  is  to 
be  as  frankly  and  positively  affirmed  that  their  Qua- 
ker tormentors  were  the  aggressive  party  ;  that  they 
wantonly  initiated  the  strife,  and  with  a  dogged  per- 
tinacity persisted  in  outrages  which  drove  the  author- 
ities almost  to  frenzy.  .  .  ."  2 

The  proposition  that  the  Congregationalists  owned 
the  territory  granted  by  the  charter  of  Charles  I.  as 
though  it  were  a  private  estate,  has  been  considered 
in  an  earlier  chapter ;  and  if  the  legal  views  there  ad- 
vanced are  sound,  it  is  incontrovertible,  that  all  peace- 
ful British  subjects  had  a  right  to  dwell  in  Massa- 
chusetts, provided  they  did  not  infringe  the  monopoly 
in  trade.  The  only  remaining  question,  therefore,  is 
whether  the  Quakers  were  peaceful.  Dr.  Ellis,  Dr. 
Palfrey,  and  Dr.  Dexter  have  carefully  collected  a 
certain  number  of  cases  of  misconduct,  with  the  view 

1  Mass,  and  its  Early  History,  p.  110. 
3  Idem,  p.  104. 


THE   QUAKERS.  307 

of  proving  that  the  Friends  were  turbulent,  and  the 
government  had  reasonable  grounds  for  apprehending 
such  another  outbreak  as  one  which  occurred  a  cen- 
tury before  in  Germany  and  is  known  as  the  Peas- 
ants' War.  Before,  however,  it  is  possible  to  enter 
upon  a  consideration  of  the  evidence  intelligently,  it 
is  necessary  to  fix  the  chronological  order  of  the  lead- 
ing events  of  the  persecution. 

The  twenty-one  years  over  which  it  extended  may 
be  conveniently  divided  into  three  periods,  of  which 
the  first  began  in  July,  1656,  when  Mary  Fisher  and 
Anne  Austin  came  to  Boston,  and  lasted  till  Decem- 
ber, 1661,  when  Charles  II.  interfered  by  command- 
ing Endicott  to  send  those  under  arrest  to  England 
for  trial.  Hitherto  John  Norton  had  been  preeminent, 
but  in  that  same  December  he  was  appointed  on  a 
mission  to  London,  and  as  he  died  soon  after  his  re- 
turn, his  direct  influence  on  affairs  then  probably 
ceased.  He  had  been  chiefly  responsible  for  the  hang- 
ings of  1659  and  1660,  but  under  no  circumstances 
could  they  have  been  continued,  for  after  four  heretics 
had  perished,  it  was  found  impossible  to  execute 
Wenlock  Christison,  who  had  been  condemned,  be- 
cause of  popular  indignation. 

Nevertheless,  the  respite  was  brief.  In  June,  1662, 
the  king,  in  a  letter  confirming  the  charter,  excluded 
the  Quakers  from  the  general  toleration  which  he 
demanded  for  other  sects,  and  the  old  legislation  was 
forthwith  revived  ;  only  as  it  was  found  impossible  to 
kill  the  schismatics  openly,  the  inference,  from  what 


308  THE   QUAKERS. 

occurred  subsequently,  is  unavoidable,  that  the  elders 
sought  to  attain  their  purpose  by  what  their  reverend 
historians  call  "  a  humaner  policy,"  l  or,  in  plain  Eng- 
lish, by  murdering  them  by  flogging  and  starvation. 
Nor  was  the  device  new,  for  the  same  stratagem  had 
already  been  resorted  to  by  the  East  India  Company, 
in  Hindostan,  before  they  were  granted  full  criminal 
jurisdiction.2 

The  Vagabond  Act  was  too  well  contrived  for  com- 
passing such  an  end,  to  have  been  an  accident,  and 
portions  of  it  strongly  suggest  the  hand  of  Norton. 
It  was  passed  in  May,  1661,  when  it  was  becoming 
evident  that  hanging  must  be  abandoned,  and  its  pro- 
visions can  only  be  explained  on  the  supposition  that 
it  was  the  intention  to  make  the  infliction  of  death 
discretionary  with  each  magistrate.  It  provided  that 
any  foreign  Quaker,  or  any  native  upon  a  second  con- 
viction, might  be  ordered  to  receive  an  unlimited 
number  of  stripes.  It  is  important  also  to  observe 
that  the  whip  was  a  two-handed  implement,  armed 
with  lashes  made  of  twisted  and  knotted  cord  or  cat- 
gut.3 There  can  be  no  doubt,  moreover,  that  sundry 
of  the  judgments  afterward  pronounced  would  have 
resulted  fatally  had  the  people  permitted  their  execu- 
tion. During  the  autumn  following  its  enactment 
this  statute  was  suspended,  but  it  was  revived  in  about 
ten  months. 

1  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  134. 

2  Mill's  British  India,  i.  48,  note. 

•  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  357,  note. 


THE   QUAKERS.  309 

Endicott's  death  in  1665  marks  the  close  of  the 
second  epoch,  and  ten  comparatively  tranquil  years 
followed.  Bellingham's  moderation  may  have  been  in 
part  due  to  the  interference  of  the  royal  commission- 
ers, but  a  more  potent  reason  was  the  popular  dis- 
gust, which  had  become  so  strong  that  the  penal  laws 
could  not  be  enforced. 

A  last  effort  was  made  to  rekindle  the  dying  flame 
in  1675,  by  fining  constables  who  failed  in  their  duty 
to  break  up  Quaker  meetings,  and  offering  one  third 
of  the  penalty  to  the  informer.  Magistrates  were  re- 
quired to  sentence  those  apprehended  to  the  House  of 
Correction,  where  they  were  to  be  kept  three  days  on 
bread  and  water,  and  whipped.1  Several  suffered 
during  this  revival,  the  last  of  whom  was  Margaret 
Brewster.  At  the  end  of  twenty-one  years  the  policy 
of  cruelty  had  become  thoroughly  discredited  and  a 
general  toleration  could  no  longer  be  postponed  ;  but 
this  great  liberal  triumph  was  only  won  by  heroic 
courage  and  by  the  endurance  of  excruciating  tor- 
ments. Marmaduke  Stevenson,  William  Robinson, 
Mary  Dyer,  and  William  Leddra  were  hanged,  sev- 
eral were  mutilated  or  branded,  two  at  least  are  known 
to  have  died  from  starvation  and  whipping,  and  it  is 
probable  that  others  were  killed  whose  fate  cannot  be 
traced.  The  number  tortured  under  the  Vagabond 
Act  is  unknown,  nor  can  any  estimate  be  made  of  the 
misery  inflicted  upon  children  by  the  ruin  and  exile 
of  parents. 

1  Mass.  Rec.  v.  60. 


310  THE   QUAKERS. 

The  early  Quakers  were  enthusiasts,  and  therefore 
occasionally  spoke  and  acted  extravagantly  ;  they  also 
adopted  some  offensive  customs,  the  most  objectionable 
of  which  was  wearing  the  hat ;  all  this  is  immaterial. 
The  question  at  issue  is  not  their  social  attractiveness, 
but  the  cause  whose  consequence  was  a  virulent  perse- 
cution. This  can  only  be  determined  by  an  analysis 
of  the  evidence.  If,  upon  an  impartial  review  of  the 
cases  of  outrage  which  have  been  collected,  it  shall 
appear  probable  that  the  conduct  of  the  Friends  was 
sufficiently  violent  to  make  it  credible  that  the  legis- 
lature spoke  the  truth,  when  it  declared  that  "  the 
prudence  of  this  court  was  exercised  onely  in  making 
provission  to  secure  the  peace  &  order  heere  estab- 
lished against  theire  attempts,  whose  designe  (wee  were 
well  assured  by  our  oune  experience,  as  well  as  by  the 
example  of  theire  predecessors  in  Munster)  was  to 
vndermine  &  ruine  the  same;"1  then  the  reverend 
historians  of  the  theocracy  must  be  considered  to 
have  established  their  proposition.  But  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  shall  seem  apparent  that  the  intense  vindic- 
tiveness  of  this  onslaught  was  due  to  the  bigotry  and 
greed  of  power  of  a  despotic  priesthood,  who  saw  in 
the  spread  of  independent  thought  a  menace  to  the 
ascendency  of  their  order,  then  it  must  be  held  to  be 
demonstrated  that  the  clergy  of  New  England  acted 
in  obedience  to  those  natural  laws,  which  have  always 
regulated  the  conduct  of  mankind. 

1  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  385. 


THE   QUAKERS.  311 

CHRONOLOGY. 

1656,  July.     First  Quakers  came  to  Boston. 

1656,  14  Oct.     First  act  against  Quakers  passed. 
Providing  that  ship-masters  bringing  Quakers  should 
be  fined  £100.     Quakers  to  be  whipped  and  impris- 
oned till  expelled.     Importers  of  Quaker  books  to  be 
fined.     Any  defending  Quaker  opinions  to  be  fined, 
first  offence,  40s. ;  second,  <£4  ;  third,  banishment. 

1657,  14  Oct.     By  a  supplementary  act ;  Quakers 
returning  after  one  conviction  for  first  offence,  for  men, 
loss  of  one  ear ;  imprisonment  till  exile.     Second  of- 
fence, loss  other  ear,  like  imprisonment.    For  females ; 
first  offence,  whipping,  imprisonment.    Second  offence, 
idem.     Third  offence,  men  and  women  alike  ;  tongue 
to  be  bored  with  a  hot  iron,  imprisonment,  exile.1 

1658,  In  this  year  Rev.  John  Norton  actively  ex- 
erted himself   to  secure  more  stringent  legislation ; 
procured  petition  to  that  effect  to  be  presented  to 
court. 

1658,  19  Oct.     Enacted  that  undomiciled  Quakers 
returning  from  banishment  should  be  hanged.     Dom- 
iciled Quakers  upon  conviction,  refusing  to  apostatize, 
to  be  banished,  under  pain  of  death  on  return.2 

Under  this  act  the  following  persons  were  hanged  : 

1659,  27  Oct.     Robinson  and  Stevenson  hanged. 

1660,  1  June.     Mary  Dyer  hanged.     (Previously 
condemned,  reprieved,  and  executed  for  returning.) 

1660-1661,  14  Mar.     William  Leddra  hanged, 
i  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  309.  *  Idem,  p.  346. 


312  THE   QUAKERS. 

1661,  June.  Wenlock  Christison  condemned  to 
death  ;  released. 

1661,  22  May.  Vagabond  Act.  Any  person  con- 
victed before  a  county  magistrate  of  being  an  undomi- 
ciled  or  vagabond  Quaker  to  be  stripped  naked  to  the 
middle,  tied  to  the  cart's  tail,  and  flogged  from  town 
to  town  to  the  border.  Domiciled  Quakers  to  be  pro- 
ceeded against  under  Act  of  1658  to  banishment,  and 
then  treated  as  vagabond  Quakers.  The  death  pen- 
alty was  still  preserved  but  not  enforced.1 

1661,  9  Sept.  King  Charles  II.  wrote  to  Governor 
Endicott  directing  the  cessation  of  corporal  punish- 
ment in  regard  to  Quakers,  and  ordering  the  accused 
to  be  sent  to  England  for  trial. 

1661,  27  Nov.     Vagabond  Act  suspended. 

1662,  28  June.     The  company's  agents,  Bradstreet 
and  Norton,  received  from  the  king  his  letter  of  par- 
don, etc.,  wherein,  however,  Quakers  are  excepted  from 
the  demand  made  for  religious  toleration. 

1662,  8  Oct.  Encouraged  by  the  above  letter  the 
Vagabond  law  revived. 

1664-5,  15  March.  Death  of  John  Endicott.  Bel- 
lingham  governor.  Commissioners  interfere  on  be- 
half of  Quakers  in  May.  The  persecution  subsides. 

1672,  3  Nov.  Persecution  revived  by  passage  of 
law  punishing  persons  found  at  Quaker  meeting  by 
fine  or  imprisonment  and  flogging.  Also  fining  con- 
stables for  neglect  in  making  arrests  and  giving  one 
third  the  fine  to  informers.2 

1  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  3.  3  Mass.  Rec.  v.  60. 


THE   QUAKERS.  313 

1677,  Aug.  9.     Margaret  Brewster  whipped  for  en- 
tering the  Old  South  in  sackcloth. 

TURBULENT   QUAKERS. 

1656,  Mary  Prince.  1662,  Deborah  Wilson. 

1658,  Sarah  Gibbons.  1663,  Thomas  Newhouse. 

"       Dorothy  Waugh.  "       Edward  Wharton. 

1660,  John  Smith.  1664,  Hannah  Wright.1 

1661,  Katherine  Chatham.         "       Mary  Tomkins. 

"       George  Wilson.  1665,  Lydia  Wardwell. 

1662,  Elizabeth  Hooton.          1677,  Margaret  Brewster. 

"  It  was  in  the  month  called  July,  of  this  present 
year  [1656]  when  Mary  Fisher  and  Ann  Austin 
arrived  in  the  road  before  Boston,  before  ever  a  law 
was  made  there  against  the  Quakers ;  and  yet  they 
were  very  ill  treated ;  for  before  they  came  ashore,  the 
deputy  governor,  Richard  Bellingham  (the  governor 
himself  being  out  of  town)  sent  officers  aboard,  who 
searched  their  trunks  and  chests,  and  took  away  the 
books  they  found  there,  which  were  about  one  hun- 
dred, and  carried  them  ashore,  after  having  com- 
manded the  said  women  to  be  kept  prisoners  aboard ; 
and  the  said  books  were,  by  an  order  of  the  council, 
burnt  in  the  market-place  by  the  hangman.  .  .  .  And 
then  they  were  shut  up  close  prisoners,  and  command 
was  given  that  none  should  come  to  them  without 
leave ;  a  fine  of  five  pounds  being  laid  on  any  that 
should  otherwise  come  at,  or  speak  with  them,  tho'  but 
at  the  window.  Their  pens,  ink,  and  paper  were 
1  Uncertain. 


314  THE   QUAKERS. 

taken  from  them,  and  they  not  suffered  to  have  any 
candle-light  in  the  night  season ;  nay,  what  is  more, 
they  were  stript  naked,  under  pretence  to  know 
whether  they  were  witches  [a  true  touch  of  sacerdo- 
tal malignity]  tho'  in  searching  no  token  was  found 
upon  them  but  of  innocence.  And  in  this  search  they 
were  so  barbarously  misused  that  modesty  forbids  to 
mention  it :  And  that  none  might  have  communica- 
tion with  them  a  board  was  nailed  up  before  the  win- 
dow of  the  jail.  And  seeing  they  were  not  provided 
with  victuals,  Nicholas  Upshal,  one  who  had  lived 
long  in  Boston,  and  was  a  member  of  the  church 
there,  was  so  concerned  about  it,  (liberty  being  denied 
to  send  them  provision)  that  he  purchas'd  it  of  the 
jailor  at  the  rate  of.  five  shillings  a  week,  lest  they 
should  have  starved.  And  after  having  been  about 
five  weeks  prisoners,  William  Chichester,  master  of  a 
vessel,  was  bound  in  one  hundred  pound  bond  to 
carry  them  back,  and  not  suffer  any  to  speak  with 
them,  after  they  were  put  on  board ;  and  the  jailor 
kept  their  beds  .  .  .  and  their  Bible,  for  his  fees."  1 

Endicott  was  much  dissatisfied  with  the  forbearance 
of  BeUingham,  and  declared  that  had  he  "  been  there 
...  he  would  have  had  them  well  whipp'd."  2  No  ex- 
ertion was  spared,  nevertheless,  to  get  some  hold  upon 
them,  the  elders  examining  them  as  to  matters  of  faith, 
with  a  view  to  ensnare  them  as  heretics.  In  this,  how- 
ever,  they  were  foiled. 

1  Sewel,  p.  160. 

2  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  10. 


THE   QUAKERS.  315 

On  the  authority  of  Hutchinson,  Dr.  Dexter1  and 
Dr.  Palfrey  complain  2  that  Mary  Prince  reviled  two 
of  the  ministers,  who  "  with  much  moderation  and  ten- 
derness endeavored  to  convince  her  of  her  errors."  8 
A  visitation  of  the  clergy  was  a  form  of  torment  from 
which  even  the  boldest  recoiled ;  Vane,  Gorton,  Childe, 
and  Anne  Hutchinson  quailed  under  it,  and  though 
the  Quakers  abundantly  proved  that  they  could  bear 
stripes  with  patience,  they  could  not  endure  this. 
She  called  them  "  Baal's  priests,  the  seed  of  the  ser- 
pent." Dr.  Ellis  also  speaks  of  "  stinging  objurga- 
tions screamed  out  .  .  .  from  between  the  bars  of 
their  prisons."  4  He  cites  no  cases,  but  he  probably 
refers  to  the  same  woman  who  called  to  Endicott  one 
Sunday  on  his  way  from  church  :  "  Woe  unto  thee, 
thou  art  an  oppressor."  5  If  she  said  so  she  spoke  the 
truth,  for  she  was  illegally  imprisoned,  was  deprived 
of  her  property,  and  subjected  to  great  hardship. 

In  October,  1656,  the  first  of  the  repressive  acts 
was  passed,  by  which  the  "  cursed  "  and  "  blasphe- 
mous "  intruders  were  condemned  to  be  "  comitted  to 
the  house  of  correction,  and  at  theire  entrance  to 
be  seuerely  whipt  and  by  the  master  thereof  to  be 
kept  constantly  to  worke,  and  none  suffered  to  con- 
verse or  speak  wth  them ; "  6  and  any  captain  know- 
ingly bringing  them  within  the  jurisdiction  to  be  fined 
one  hundred  pounds,  with  imprisonment  till  payment. 

i  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  127.  2  Palfrey,  ii.  464. 

8  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  181.  *  Mem.  Hist,  of  Boston,  i.  182. 

6  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  181.  6  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  278. 


316  THE   QUAKERS. 

"  When  this  law  was  published  at  the  door  of 
the  aforenamed  Nicholas  Upshall,  the  good  old  man, 
grieved  in  spirit,  publickly  testified  against  it;  for 
which  he  was  the  next  morning  sent  for  to  the  Gen- 
eral Court,  where  he  told  them  that :  '  The  execution 
of  that  law  would  be  a  forerunner  of  a  judgment  upon 
their  country,  and  therefore  in  love  and  tenderness 
which  he  bare  to  the  people  and  place,  desired  them 
to  take  heed,  lest  they  were  found  fighters  against 
God.'  For  this,  he,  though  one  of  their  church- 
members,  and  of  a  blameless  conversation,  was  fined 
c£20  and  <£3  more  for  not  coming  to  church,  whence 
the  sense  of  their  wickedness  had  induced  him  to  ab- 
sent himself.  They  also  banished  him  out  of  their 
jurisdiction,  allowing  him  but  one  month  for  his  de- 
parture, though  in  the  winter  season,  and  he  a  weakly 
ancient  man  :  Endicott  the  governor,  when  applied  to 
on  his  behalf  for  a  mitigation  of  his  fine,  churlishly 
answered,  '  I  will  not  bate  him  a  groat.'  "  l 

Although,  after  the  autumn  of  1656,  whippings, 
fines,  and  banishments  became  frequent,  no  case  of 
misconduct  is  alleged  until  the  13th  of  the  second 
month,  1658,  when  Sarah  Gibbons  and  Dorothy 
Waugh  broke  two  bottles  in  Mr.  Norton's  church, 
after  lecture,  to  testify  to  his  emptiness;2  both  had 
previously  been  imprisoned  and  banished,  but  the 
ferocity  with  which  Norton  at  that  moment  was  for- 
cing on  the  persecution  was  the  probable  incentive  to 
the  trespass.  "  They  were  sent  to  the  house  of  cor- 
rection, where,  after  being  kept  three  days  without 

1  Besse,  ii.  181.  a  This  charge  is  unproved. 


THE   QUAKERS.  317 

iny  food,  they  were  cruelly  whipt,  and  kept  three  days 
longer  without  victuals,  though  they  had  offered  to 
buy  some,  but  were  not  suffered."  1 

In  1661  Katharine  Chatham  walked  through  Bos- 
ton, in  sackcloth.  This  was  during  the  trial  of  Chris- 
tison  for  his  life,  when  the  terror  culminated,  and 
hardly  needs  comment. 

George  Wilson  is  charged  with  having  "rushed 
through  the  streets  of  Boston,  shouting :  '  The  Lord 
is  coming  with  fire  and  sword !  '  "  2  The  facts  appear 
to  be  these  :  in  1661,  just  before  Christison's  trial,  he 
was  arrested,  without  any  apparent  reason,  and,  as 
he  was  led  to  prison,  he  cried,  that  the  Lord  was 
coming  with  fire  and  sword  to  plead  with  Boston.3 
At  the  general  jail  delivery4  in  anticipation  of  the 
king's  order,  he  was  liberated,  but  soon  rearrested, 
"  sentenced  to  be  tied  to  the  cart's  tail,"  and  flogged 
with  so  severe  a  whip  that  the  Quakers  wanted  to  buy 
it  "  to  send  to  England  for  the  novelty  of  the  cruelty, 
but  that  was  not  permitted."  5 

Elizabeth  Hooton  coming  from  England  in  1661, 
with  Joan  Brooksup,  "  they  were  soon  clapt  up  in 
prison,  and,  upon  their  discharge  thence,  being  driven 
with  the  rest  two  days'  journey  into  the  vast,  hov.l- 
ing  wilderness,  and  there  left  .  .  .  without  necessary 
provisions."6  They  escaped  to  Barbadoes.  "Upon 

1  Besse,  ii.  184.  2  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  133. 

«  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  351. 
4  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  19.     Order  passed  28  May,  166L 
6  Besse,  ii.  224.  •  Besse,  ii.  228,  2C9. 


318  THE   QUAKERS. 

their  coming  again  to  Boston,  they  were  presently  ap* 
prehended  by  a  constable,  an  ignorant  and  furious 
zealot,  who  declared,  '  It  was  his  delight,  and  he  could 
rejoice  in  following  the  Quakers  to  their  execution 
as  much  as  ever.' "  Wishing  to  return  once  more, 
she  obtained  a  license  from  the  king  to  buy  a  house  in 
any  plantation.  Though  about  sixty,  she  was  seized 
at  Dover,  where  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rayner  was  settled,  put 
into  the  stocks,  and  imprisoned  four  days  in  the  dead 
of  winter,  where  she  nearly  perished  from  cold.1  Af- 
terward, at  Cambridge,  she  exhorted  the  people  to 
repentance  in  the  streets,2  and  for  this  crime,  which 
is  cited  as  an  outrage  to  Puritan  decorum,3  she  was 
once  more  apprehended  and  "imprisoned  in  a  close, 
stinking  dungeon,  where  there  was  nothing  either  to 
lie  down  or  sit  on,  where  she  was  kept  two  days  and 
two  nights  without  bread  or  water,"  and  then  sen- 
tenced to  be  whipped  through  three  towns.  "At 
Cambridge  she  was  tied  to  the  whipping-post,  and 
lashed  with  ten  stripes  with  a  three-stringed  whip, 
with  three  knots  at  the  end :  At  Watertown  she  was 
laid  on  with  ten  stripes  more  with  rods  of  willow :  At 
Dedham,  in  a  cold  frosty  morning,  they  tortured  her 
aged  body  with  ten  stripes  more  at  a  cart's  tail." 
The  peculiar  atrocity  of  flogging  from  town  to  town 
lay  in  this:  that  the  victim's  wounds  became  cold 

1  Besse,  ii.  229. 

2  "  Repentance  !   Repentance  !     A  day  of  howling  and    fiad 
lamentation  is  coming  upon  you  all  from  the  Lord." 

8  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  133. 


THE   QUAKERS.  319 

between  thj  times  of  punishment,  and  in  winter  some- 
times frozen,  which  made  the  torture  intolerably 
agonizing.  Then,  as  hanging  was  impossible,  other 
means  were  tried  to  make  an  end  of  her :  "  Thus 
miserably  torn  and  beaten,  they  carried  her  a  weary 
journey  on  horseback  many  miles  into  the  wilder- 
ness, and  toward  night  left  her  there  among  wolves, 
bears,  and  other  wild  beasts,  who,  though  they  did 
sometimes  seize  on  living  persons,  were  yet  to  her  less 
cruel  than  the  savage  -  professors  of  that  country. 
When  those  who  conveyed  her  thither  left  her,  they 
said,  '  They  thought  they  should  never  see  her 
more.' " ] 

The  intent  to  kill  is  obvious,  and  yet  Elizabeth 
Hooton  suffered  less  than  many  of  those  convicted 
and  sentenced  after  public  indignation  had  forced  the 
theocracy  to  adopt  what  their  reverend  successors  are 
pleased  to  call  the  "  humaner  policy  "  of  the  Vaga- 
bond Act.2 

Any  want  of  deference  to  a  clergyman  is  sure  to  be 
given  a  prominent  place  in  the  annals  of  Massachu- 
setts ;  and,  accordingly,  the  breaking  of  bottles  in 
church,  which  happened  twice  in  twenty-one  years,  is 
never  omitted. 

In  1663  "John  Liddal,  and  Thomas  Newhouse, 
having  been  at  meeting  "  (at  Salem),  "  were  appre- 
hended and  .  .  .  sentenced  to  be  whipt  through  three 
towns  as  vagabonds,"  which  was  accordingly  done. 

1  Besse,  ii.  229.     See  New  England  Judged,  p.  413. 

2  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  134. 


320  THE   QUAKERS. 

"  Not  long  after  this,  the  aforesaid  Thomas  New- 
house  was  again  whipt  through  the  jurisdiction  of 
Boston  for  testifying  against  the  persecutors  in  their 
uieeting-house  there ;  at  which  time  he,  in  a  prophetick 
manner,  having  two  glass  bottles  in  his  hands,  threw 
them  down,  saying,  '  so  shall  you  be  dashed  in 
pieces.' " l 

The  next  turbulent  Quaker  is  mentioned  in  this 
way  by  Dr.  Dexter  :  "  Edward  Wharton  was  '  pressed 
in  spirit '  to  repair  to  Dover  and  proclaim  '  Wo,  ven- 
geance, and  the  indignation  of  the  Lord?  upon  the 
court  in  session  there."  2  This  happened  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1663,  and  long  ere  then  he  had  seen  and 
suffered  the  oppression  that  makes  men  mad.  He 
was  a  peaceable  and  industrious  inhabitant  of  Salem ; 
in  1659  he  had  seen  Robinson  and  Stevenson  done  to 
death,  and,  being  deeply  moved,  he  said,  "  the  guilt 
of  [their]  blood  was  so  great  that  he  could  not  bear 
it ;  "  3  he  was  taken  from  his  home,  given  twenty  lashes 
and  fined  twenty  pounds ;  the  next  year,  just  at  the 
time  of  Christison's  trial,  he  was  again  seized,  led 
through  the  country  like  a  notorious  offender,  and 
thrown  into  prison,  "  where  he  was  kept  close,  night 
and  day,  with  William  Leddra,  sometimes  in  a  very 
little  room,  little  bigger  than  a  saw-pit,  having  no  lib- 
erty granted  them." 

"  Being  brought  before  their  court,  he  again  asked, 
lWhat  is  the  cause,  and  wherefore  have  I  been 

i  Besse,  ii.  232.  2  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  133. 

8  Besse,  ii.  205. 


THE   QUAKERS.  321 

fetcht  from  my  habitation,  where  I  was  following  my 
honest  calling,  and  here  laid  up  as  an  evil-doer?' 
They  told  him,  that  '  his  hair  was  too  long,  and  that 
he  had  disobeyed  that  commandment  which  saith, 
Honour  thy  father  and  mother.'  He  asked,  '  Where- 
in ?'  'In  that  you  will  not,'  said  they,  '  put  off  your 
hat  to  magistrates.'  Edward  replied,  '  I  love  and 
own  all  magistrates  and  rulers,  who  are  for  the  pun- 
ishment of  evil  doers,  and  for  the  praise  of  them  that 
do  well.'  "  1 

Then  Rawson  pronounced  the  sentence :  "  You  are 
upon  pain  of  death  to  depart  this  jurisdiction,  it  being 
the  llth  of  this  instant  March,  by  the  one  and  twen- 
tieth of  the  same,  on  the  pain  of  death.  .  .  .  '  Nay 
[said  Wharton],  I  shall  not  go  away;  therefore  be 
careful  what  you  do.'  "  2 

And  he  did  not  go,  but  was  with  Leddra  when  he 
died  upon  the  tree.  On  the  day  Leddra  suffered, 
Christison  was  brought  before  Endicott,  and  com- 
manded to  renounce  his  religion ;  but  he  answered : 
"Nay,  I  shall  not  change  my  religion,  nor  seek  to 
save  my  life ;  .  .  .  but  if  I  lose  my  life  for  Christ's 
sake  and  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  I  shall  save 
it."  They  then  sent  him  back  to  prison  to  await  his 
doom.  At  the  next  court  he  was  brought  to  the  bar, 
where  he  demanded  an  appeal  to  England ;  but  in  the 
midst  a  letter  was  brought  in  from  Wharton,  signify- 
ing, "  That  whereas  they  had  banished  him  on  pain  of 
death,  yet  he  was  at  home  in  his  own  house  at  Salem, 

1  Besse,  ii.  220.  3  Besse,  ii.  221. 


322  THE   QUAKERS. 

and  therefore  proposing,  '  That  they  would  take  off 
their  wicked  sentence  from  him,  that  he  might  go 
about  his  occasions  out  of  their  jurisdiction.'  " 1 

Endicott  was  exasperated  to  frenzy,  for  he  felt  the 
ground  crumbling  beneath  him;  he  put  the  fate  of 
Christison  to  the  vote,  and  failed  to  carry  a  condem- 
nation. "  The  governor  seeing  this  division,  said,  '  I 
could  find  it  in  my  heart  to  go  home  ; '  being  in  such 
a  rage,  that  he  flung  something  furiously  on  the  table. 
.  .  .  Then  the  governor  put  the  court  to  vote  again ; 
but  this  was  done  confusedly,  which  so  incensed  the 
governor  that  he  stood  up  and  said,  '  You  that  will 
not  consent  record  it :  I  thank  God  I  am  not  afraid 
to  give  judgment.  .  .  .  Wenlock  Christison,  hearken 
to  your  sentence :  You  must  return  unto  the  place 
from  whence  you  came,  and  from  thence  to  the  place 
of  execution,  and  there  you  must  be  hang'd  until 
you  are  dead,  dead,  dead.'  "  2  Thereafter  Wharton 
invoked  the  wrath  of  God  against  the  theocracy. 

To  none  of  the  enormities  committed  during  these 
years  are  the  divines  more  keenly  alive  than  to  the 
crime  of  disturbing  what  they  call  "public  Sabbath 
worship ;  "  3  and  since  their  language  conveys  the  im- 
pression that  such  acts  were  not  only  very  common, 
but  also  unprovoked,  whereas  the  truth  is  that  they 
were  rare,  it  cannot  fail  to  be  instructive  to  relate  the 
causes  which  led  to  the  interruption  of  the  ordination 

1  Besse,  ii.  222,  223. 

2  Sewel,  p.  279. 

8  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  139. 


THE   QUAKERS.  323 

of  that  Mr.  Higginson,  who  called  the  "  inner  light " 
"  a  stinking  vapour  from  hell."  1 

John  and  Margaret  Smith  were  members  of  the  Sa- 
lem church,  and  John  was  a  freeman.  In  1658,  Marga- 
ret became  a  Quaker,  and  though  in  feeble  health,  she 
was  cast  into  prison,  and  endured  the  extremities  of 
privation ;  her  sufferings  and  her  patience  so  wrought 
upon  her  husband  that  he  too  became  a  convert,  and 
a  few  weeks  before  the  ceremony  wrote  to  Endicott : 

"  O  governour,  governour,  do  not  think  that  my  love 
to  my  wife  is  at  all  abated,  because  I  sit  still  silent, 
and  do  not  seek  her  .  .  .  freedom,  which  if  I  did  would 
not  avail.  .  .  .  Upon  examination  of  her,  there  being 
nothing  justly  laid  to  her  charge,  yet  to  fulfil  your 
wills,  it  was  determined,  that  she  must  have  ten  stripes 
in  the  open  market  place,  it  being  very  cold,  the  snow 
lying  by  the  walls,  and  the  wind  blowing  cold.  .  .  . 
My  love  is  much  more  increased  to  her,  because  I  see 
your  cruelty  so  much  enlarged  to  her."  2 

Yet,  though  laboring  under  such  intense  excite- 
ment, the  only  act  of  insubordination  wherewith  this 
man  is  charged  was  saying  in  a  loud  voice  during  the 
service,  "  What  you  are  going  about  to  set  up,  our 
God  is  pulling  down."  3 

Dr.  Dexter  also  speaks  with  pathos  of  the  youth  of 
some  of  the  criminals. 

"  Hannah  Wright,  a  mere  girl  of  less  than  fifteen 
summers,  toiled  .  .  .  from  Oyster  Bay  ...  to  Boston, 

1  Ordained  July  8,  1660.     Annals  of  Salem. 

2  Besse,  ii.  208,  209.  »  Hutca.  Hist.  i.  187. 


324  THE   QUAKERS. 

that  she  might  pipe  in  the  ears  of  the  court  '  a  warn- 
ing-  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.'  " l  This  appears  to 
have  happened  in  1664,2  yet  the  name  of  Hannah 
Wright  is  recorded  among  those  who  were  released  in 
the  general  jail  delivery  in  1661,3  when  she  was  only 
twelve  ;  and  her  sister  had  been  banished.4 

But  of  all  the  scandals  which  have  been  dwelt  on 
for  two  centuries  with  such  unction,  none  have  been 
made  more  notorious  than  certain  extravagances  com- 
mitted by  three  women ;  and  regarding  them,  the 
reasoning  of  Dr.  Dexter  should  be  read  in  full. 

"  The  Quaker  of  the  seventeenth  century  .  .  .  was 
essentially  a  coarse,  blustering,  conceited,  disagree- 
able, impudent  fanatic ;  whose  religion  gained  subjec- 
tive comfort  in  exact  proportion  to  the  objective  com- 
fort of  which  it  was  able  to  deprive  others ;  and  which 
broke  out  into  its  choicest  exhibitions  in  acts  which 
were  not  only  at  that  time  in  the  nature  of  a  public 
scandal  and  nuisance,  but  which  even  in  the  brightest 
light  of  this  nineteenth  century  .  .  .  would  subject 
those  who  should  be  guilty  of  them  to  the  immediate 
and  stringent  attention  of  the  police  court.  The 
disturbance  of  public  Sabbath  worship,  and  the  inde- 
cent exposure  of  the  person  —  whether  conscience  be 
pleaded  for  them  or  not  —  are  punished,  and  rightly 
punished,  as  crimes  by  every  civilized  governmento"  * 

1  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  133. 

2  Besse,  ii.  234.     New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  461. 

8  Besse,  ii.  224.         4  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  46L 
•  As  to  Roger  Williams,  pp.  138,  139. 


THE   QUAKERS.  325 

This  paragraph  undoubtedly  refers  to  Mary  Tom- 
kins,  who  "  on  the  First  Day  of  the  week  at  Oyster 
River,  broke  up  the  service  of  God's  house  .  .  .  the 
scene  ending  in  deplorable  confusion ;  "  l  and  to  Lydia 
Wardwell  and  Deborah  Wilson,  who  appeared  in 
public  naked. 

Mary  Tomkins  and  Alice  Ambrose  came  tc  Massa- 
chusetts in  1662  ;  landing  at  Dover,  they  began  preach- 
ing at  the  inn,  to  which  a  number  of  people  resorted. 
Mr.  Rayner,  hearing  the  news,  hurried  to  the  spot, 
and  in  much  irritation  asked  them  what  they  were 
doing  there  ?  This  led  to  an  argument  about  the 
Trinity,  and  the  authority  of  ministers,  and  at  last 
the  clergyman  "  in  a  rage  flung  away,  calling  to  his 
people,  at  the  window,  to  go  from  amongst  them."  2 
Nothing  was  done  at  the  moment,  but  toward  winter 
the  two  came  back  from  Maine,  whither  they  had 
gone,  and  then  Mr.  Rayner  saw  his  opportunity.  He 
caused  Richard  Walden  to  prosecute  them,  and  as  the 
magistrate  was  ignorant  of  the  technicalities  of  the 
law,  the  elder  acted  as  clerk,  and  drew  up  for  him 
the  following  warrant :  — 

To   the  Constables   of  Dover,   Hampton,   Salisbury, 
Newbury,   Rowley,  Ipswich,   Wenham,  Linn,  Bos- 
ton, Roxbury,  Dedham,  and  until  these  vagabond 
Quakers  are  carried  out  of  this  jurisdiction. 
You  and  every  of  you  are  required,  in  the  King's 

1  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  133. 

2  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  362. 


326  THE   QUAKERS. 

Majesty's  name,  to  take  these  vagabond  Quakers, 
Anne  Coleman,  Mary  Tomkins  and  Alice  Ambrose, 
and  make  them  fast  to  the  cart's  tail,  and  driving 
the  cart  through  your  several  towns,  to  whip  them  on 
their  backs,  not  exceeding  ten  stripes  apiece  on  each 
of  them  in  each  town,  and  so  to  convey  them  from 
constable  to  constable,  till  they  come  out  of  this 
jurisdiction,  as  you  will  answer  it  at  your  peril :  and 
this  shall  be  your  warrant. 

Per  me  RICHARD  WALDEN. 

At  Dover,  dated  December  the  22d,  1662.1 

The  Rev.  John  Rayner  pronounced  judgment  of 
death  by  flogging,  for  the  weather  was  bitter,  the  dis- 
tance to  be  walked  was  eighty  miles,  and  the  lashes 
were  given  with  a  whip,  whose  three  twisted,  knotted 
thongs  cut  to  the  bone. 

"  So,  in  a  very  cold  day,  your  deputy,  Walden,  caused 
these  women  to  be  stripp'd  naked  from  the  middle  up- 
ward, and  tyed  to  a  cart,  and  after  a  while  cruelly 
whipp'd  them,  whilst  the  priest  stood  and  looked,  and 
laughed  at  it.  ...  They  went  with  the  executioner  to 
Hampton,  and  through  dirt  and  snow  at  Salisbury, 
half  way  the  leg  deep,  the  constable  forced  them  after 
the  cart's  tayl  at  which  he  whipp'd  them."  2 

Had  the  Reverend  John  Rayner  but  followed  the 
cart,  to  see  that  his  three  hundred  and  thirty  lashes 
were  all  given  with  the  same  ferocity  which  warmed 
his  heart  to  mirth  at  Dover,  before  his  journey's  end 

i  Besse,  ii.  227.  «  New  England  Judged,  pp.  366,  367. 


THE   QUAKERS.  327 

he  would  certainly  have  joyed  in  giving  thanks  to 
God  over  the  women's  gory  corpses,  freezing  amid  the 
snow.  His  negligence  saved  their  lives,  for  when  the 
ghastly  pilgrims  passed  through  Salisbury,  the  people 
to  their  eternal  honor  set  the  captives  free. 

Soon  after,  on  Sunday,  —  "  Whilst  Alice  Ambrose 
was  at  prayer,  two  constables  .  .  .  came  .  .  .  and 
taking  her  .  .  .  dragged  her  out  of  doors,  and  then 
with  her  face  toward  the  snow,  which  was  knee  deep, 
over  stumps  and  old  trees  near  a  mile ;  when  they  had 
wearied  themselves  they  .  .  .  left  the  prisoner  in  an 
house  .  .  .  and  fetched  Mary  Tomkins,  whom  in  like 
manner  they  dragged  with  her  face  toward  the  snow. 
.  .  .  On  the  next  morning,  which  was  excessive  cold, 
they  got  a  canoe  .  .  .  and  so  carried  them  to  the  har- 
bour's mouth,  threatning,  that  '  They  would  now  so  do 
with  them,  as  that  they  would  be  troubled  with  them  no 
more.'  The  women  being  unwilling  to  go,  they  forced 
them  down  a  very  steep  place  in  the  snow,  dragging 
Mary  Tomkins  over  the  stumps  of  trees  to  the  water 
side,  so  that  she  was  much  bruised,  and  fainted  under 
their  hands  :  They  plucked  Alice  Ambrose  into  the 
water,  and  kept  her  swimming  by  the  canoe  in  great 
danger  of  drowning,  or  being  frozen  to  death.  They 
would  in  all  probability  have  proceeded  in  their  wicked 
purpose  to  the  rnurthering  of  those  three  women,  had 
they  not  been  prevented  by  a  sudden  storm,  which 
drove  them  back  to  the  house  again.  They  kept  the 
women  there  till  near  midnight,  and  then  cruelly 
turned  them  out  of  doors  in  the  frost  and  snow,  Alice 


328  THE   QUAKERS. 

Ambrose's  clothes  being  frozen  hard  as  boards.  .  .  . 
It  was  observable  that  those  constables,  though  wicked 
enough  of  themselves,  were  animated  by  a  ruling  elder 
of  their  church,  whose  name  corresponded  not  with  his 
actions,  for  he  was  called  Hate-evil  Nutter,  he  put 
those  men  forward,  and  by  his  presence  encouraged 
them."  i 

Subsequently,  Mary  Tomkins  committed  the  breach 
of  the  peace  complained  of,  which  was  an  interruption 
of  a  sermon  against  Quaker  preaching.2 

Deborah  Wilson,  one  of  the  women  who  went 
abroad  naked,  was  insane,  the  fact  appearing  of  rec- 
ord subsequently  as  the  judgment  of  the  court.3  She 
was  flqgged. 

Lydia  Wardwell  was  the  daughter  of  Isaac  Per- 
kins, a  freeman.  She  married  Eliakim  Wardwell, 
son  of  Thomas  Wardwell,  who  was  also  a  citizen. 
They  became  Quakers  ;  and  the  story  begins  when 
the  poor  young  woman  had  been  a  wife  just  three 
years.  "  At  Hampton,  Priest  Seaborn  Cotton,  un- 
derstanding that  one  Eliakim  Wardel  had  entertained 
Wenlock  Christison,  went  with  some  of  his  herd  to 
Eliakim's  house,  having  like  a  sturdy  herdsman  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  his  followers,  with  a  truncheon 
in  his  hand." 4  Eliakim  was  fined  for  harboring 
Christison,  and  "  a  pretty  beast  for  the  saddle,  worth 
about  fourteen  pound,  was  taken  .  .  .  the  overplus  of 

1  Besse,  ii.  228. 

2  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  386. 

s  Quaker  Invasion,  p.  104.  *  Sewel,  p.  340. 


THE   QUAKERS.  329 

which  to  make  up  to  him,  your  officers  plundred  old 
William  Marston  of  a  vessel  of  green  ginger,  which 
for  some  fine  was  taken  from  him,  and  forc'd  it  into 
Eliakim's  house,  where  he  let  it  lie  and  touched  it 
not ;  .  .  .  and  notwithstanding  he  came  not  to  your 
invented  worship,  but  was  fined  ten  shillings  a  day's 
absence,  for  him  and  his  wife,  yet  was  he  often  rated 
for  priest's  hire ;  and  the  priest  (Seaborn  Cotton,  old 
John  Cotton's  son)  to  obtain  his  end  and  to  cover 
himself,  sold  his  rate  to  a  man  almost  as  bad  as  him- 
self, .  .  .  who  coming  in  pretence  of  borrowing  a  little 
corn  for  himself,  which  the  harmless  honest  man 
willingly  lent  him  ;  and  he  finding  thereby  that  he 
had  corn,  which  was  his  design,  Judas-like,  he  went 
.  .  .  and  measured  it  away  as  he  pleased." 

"  Another  time,  the  said  Eliakim  being  rated  to  the 
said  priest,  Seaborn  Cotton,  the  said  Seaborn  having 
a  mind  to  a  pied  heifer  Eliakim  had,  as  Ahab  had  to 
Naboth's  vineyard,  sent  his  servant  nigh  two  miles  to 
fetch  her  ;  who  having  robb'd  Eliakim  of  her,  brought 
her  to  his  master."  .  .  . 

"  Again  the  said  Eliakim  was  had  to  your  court, 
and  being  by  them  fined,  they  took  almost  all  his 
marsh  and  meadow-ground  from  him  to  satisfie  it, 
which  was  for  the  keeping  his  cattle  alive  in  winter 
.  .  .  and  [so]  seized  and  took  his  estate,  that  they 
plucked  from  him  most  of  that  he  had."  l 

Lydia  Wardwell,  thus  reduced  to  penury,  and 
shaken  by  the  daily  scenes  of  unutterable  horror 
1  Neio  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  pp.  374-376. 


330  THE   QUAKERS. 

through  which  she  had  to  pass,  was  totally  unequal 
to  endure  the  strain  under  which  the  masculine  intel- 
lect of  Anne  Hutchinson  had  reeled.  She  was  pur- 
sued by  her  pastor,  who  repeatedly  commanded  her 
to  come  to  church  and  explain  her  absence  from  com- 
munion.1 The  miserable  creature,  brooding  over  her 
blighted  life  and  the  torments  of  her  friends,  became 
possessed  with  the  delusion  that  it  was  her  duty  to 
testify  against  the  barbarity  of  flogging  naked  women ; 
so  she  herself  went  in  among  them  naked  for  a  sign. 
There  could  be  no  clearer  proof  of  insanity,  for  it  is 
admitted  that  in  every  other  respect  her  conduct  was 
exemplary. 

Her  judges  at  Ipswich  had  her  bound  to  a  rough 
post  of  the  tavern,  in  which  they  sat,  and  then,  while 
the  splinters  tore  her  bare  breasts,  they  had  her  flesh 
cut  from  her  back  with  the  lash.2 

"Thus  they  served  the  wife,  and  the  husband 
escaped  not  free ;  ...  he  taxing  Simon  Broadstreet, 
...  for  upbraiding  his  wife  .  .  .  and  telling  Simon 
of  his  malitious  reproaching  of  his  wife  who  was  an 
honest  woman  .  .  .  and  of  that  report  that  went 
abroad  of  the  known  dishonesty  of  Simon's  daughter, 
Seaborn  Cotton's  wife ;  Simon  in  a  fierce  rage,  told  the 
court,  'That  if  such  fellows  should  be  suffered  to 
speak  so  in  the  court,  he  would  sit  there  no  more  : '  So 
to  please  Simon,  Eliakim  was  sentenc'd  to  be  strlpp'd 
from  his  waste  upward,  and  to  be  bound  to  an  oak- 

1  Besse,  ii.  235. 

2  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  377. 


THE   QUAKERS.  331 

tree  that  stood  by  their  worship-house,  and  to  be 
whipped  fifteen  lashes ;  ...  as  they  were  having  him 
out  ...  he  called  to  Seaborn  Cotton  ...  to  come 
and  see  the  work  done  (so  far  was  he  from  being 
daunted  by  their  cruelty),  who  hastned  out  and  fol- 
lowed him  thither,  and  so  did  old  Wiggins,  one  of  the 
magistrates,  who  when  Eliakim  was  tyed  to  the  tree 
and  stripp'd,  said  ...  to  the  whipper  .  .  .  '  Whip  him 
a  good  ; '  which  the  executioner  cruelly  performed  with 
cords  near  as  big  as  a  man's  little  finger ;  .  .  .  Priest 
Cotton  standing  near  him  .  .  .  Eliakim  .  .  .  when  he  was 
loosed  from  the  tree,  said  to  him,  amongst  the  people, 
'  Seaborn,  hath  my  py'd  heifer  calv'd  yet  ?  '  Which 
Seaborn,  the  priest,  hearing  stole  away  like  a  thief."  l 

As  Margaret  Brewster  was  the  last  who  is  known  to 
have  been  whipped,  so  is  she  one  of  the  most  famous, 
for  she  has  been  immortalized  by  Samuel  Sewall,  an 
honest,  though  a  dull  man. 

"July  8,  1677.  New  Meeting  House  Mane:  In 
sermon  time  there  came  in  a  female  Quaker,  in  a 
canvas  frock,  her  hair  disshevelled  and  loose  like  a 
Periwigg,  her  face  as  black  as  ink,  led  by  two  other 
Quakers,  and  two  other  followed.  It  occasioned  the 
greatest  and  most  amazing  uproar  that  I  ever  saw. 
Isaiah  1.  12,  14."  2 

In  1675  the  persecution  had  been  revived,  and  the 
stories  the  woman  heard  of  the  cruelties  that  were 
perpetrated  on  those  of  her  own  faith  inspired  her 

*  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  pp.  377-379. 
2  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fifth  series,  v.  43. 


332  THE   QUAKERS. 

with  the  craving  to  go  to  New  England  to  protest 
against  the  wrong ;  so  she  journeyed  thither,  and  en- 
tered the  Old  South  one  Sunday  morning  clothed  in 
sackcloth,  with  ashes  on  her  head. 

At  her  trial  she  asked  for  leave  to  speak :  "  Gov- 
ernour,  I  desire  thee  to  hear  me  a  little,  for  I  have 
something  to  say  in  behalf  of  my  friends  in  this  place  : 
.  .  .  Oh  governour!  I  cannot  but  press  thee  again 
and  again,  to  put  an  end  to  these  cruel  laws  that  you 
have  made  to  fetch  my  friends  from  their  peaceable 
meetings,  and  keep  them  three  days  in  the  house  of 
correction,  and  then  whip  them  for  worshipping  the 
true  and  living  God :  Governour !  Let  me  entreat 
thee  to  put  an  end  to  these  laws,  for  the  desire  of  my 
soul  is,  that  you  may  act  for  God,  and  then  would  you 
prosper,  but  if  you  act  against  the  Lord  and  his 
blessed  truth,  you  will  assuredly  come  to  nothing,  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it."  .  .  . 

"  Margaret  Brewster,  You  are  to  have  your  clothes 
stript  off  to  the  middle,  and  to  be  tied  to  a  cart's 
tail  at  the  South  Meeting  House,  and  to  be  drawn 
through  the  town,  and  to  receive  twenty  stripes  upon 
your  naked  body." 

"The  will  of  the  Lord  be  done:  I  am  content- 
ed." .  .  . 

Governour.  "  Take  her  away."  1 

So  ends  the  sacerdotal  list  of  Quaker  outrages,  for, 
after  Margaret  Brewster  had  expiated  her  crime  of 
protesting  against  the  repression  of  free  thought,  there 

i  Besse,  ii.  263,  264. 


THE   QUAKERS.  333 

came  a  toleration,  and  with  toleration  a  deep  tran- 
quillity, so  that  the  very  name  of  Quaker  has  become 
synonymous  with  quietude.  The  issue  between  them 
and  the  Congregationalists  must  be  left  to  be  decided 
upon  the  legal  question  of  their  right  as  English  sub- 
jects to  inhabit  Massachusetts  ;  and  secondarily  upon 
the  opinion  which  shall  be  formed  of  their  conduct  as 
citizens,  upon  the  testimony  of  those  witnesses  whom 
the  church  herself  has  called.  But  regarding  the 
great  fundamental  struggle  for  liberty  of  individual 
opinion,  no  presentation  of  the  evidence  could  be  his- 
torically correct  which  did  not  include  at  least  one 
example  of  the  fate  that  awaited  peaceful  families,  un- 
der this  ecclesiastical  government,  who  roused  the  ire 
of  the  priests. 

Lawrence  and  Cassandra  Southwick  were  an  aged 
couple,  members  of  the  Salem  church,  and  Lawrence 
was  a  freeman.  Josiah,  their  eldest  son,  was  a  man ; 
but  they  had  beside  a  younger  boy  and  girl  named 
Daniel  and  Provided. 

The  father  and  mother  were  first  arrested  in  1657 
for  harboring  two  Quakers ;  Lawrence  was  soon  re- 
leased, but  a  Quaker  tract  was  found  upon  Cassan- 
dra.1 Although  no  attempt  seems  to  have  been  made 
to  prove  heresy  to  bring  the  case  within  the  letter  of 
the  law,  the  paper  was  treated  as  a  heretical  writing, 
and  she  was  imprisoned  for  seven  weeks  and  fined 
forty  shillings. 

Persecution  made  converts  fast,  and  in  Salem  par- 
i  Besse,  ii.  183. 


334  THE   QUAKERS. 

ticularly  a  number  withdrew  from  the  church  and  be- 
gan to  worship  by  themselves.  All  were  soon  arrested, 
and  the  three  Southwicks  were  again  sent  to  Boston, 
this  time  to  serve  as  an  example.  They  arrived  on 
the  3d  of  February,  1657 ;  without  form  of  trial  they 
were  whipped  in  the  extreme  cold  weather  and  im- 
prisoned eleven  days.  Their  cattle  were  also  seized 
and  sold  to  pay  a  fine  of  <£4  13s.  for  six  weeks'  ab- 
sence from  worship  on  the  Lord's  day. 

The  next  summer,  Leddra,  who  was  afterwards 
hanged,  and  William  Brend  went  to  Salem,  and  sev- 
eral persons  were  seized  for  meeting  with  them, 
among  whom  were  the  Southwicks.  A  room  was  pre- 
pared for  the  criminals  in  the  Boston  prison  by  board- 
ing up  the  windows  and  stopping  ventilation.1  They 
were  refused  food  unless  they  worked  to  pay  for  it ; 
but  to  work  when  wrongfully  confined  was  against 
the  Quaker's  conscience,  so  they  did  not  eat  for  five 
days.  On  the  second  day  of  fasting  they  were  flogged, 
and  then,  with  wounds  undressed,  the  men  and  women 
together  were  once  more  locked  in  the  dark,  close 
room,  to  lie  upon  the  bare  boards,  in  the  stifling  July 
heat ;  for  they  were  not  given  beds.  On  the  fourth 
day  they  were  told  they  might  go  if  they  would  pay 
the  jail  fees  and  the  constables ;  but  they  refused,  and 
so  were  kept  in  prison.  On  the  morrow  the  jailer, 
thinking  to  bring  them  to  terms,  put  Brend  in  irons, 
neck  and  heels,  and  he  lay  without  food  for  sixteen 
hours  upon  his  back  lacerated  with  flogging. 
1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  64. 


THE   QUAKERS.  335 

The  next  day  the  miserable  man  was ,  ordered  to 
work,  but  he  lacked  the  strength,  had  he  been  willing, 
for  he  was  weak  from  starvation  and  pain,  and  stiff- 
ened by  the  irons.  And  now  the  climax  came.  The 
jailer  seized  a  tarred  rope  and  beat  him  till  it  broke; 
then,  foaming  with  fury,  he  dragged  the  old  man  down 
stairs,  and,  with  a  new  rope,  gave  him  ninety-seven 
blows,  when  his  strength  failed ;  and  Brend,  his  flesh 
black  and  beaten  to  jelly,  and  his  bruised  skin  hang- 
ing in  bags  full  of  clotted  blood,  was  thrust  into  his 
cell.  There,  upon  the  floor  of  that  dark  and  fetid 
den,  the  victim  fainted.  But  help  was  at  hand  ;  an 
outcry  was  raised,  the  people  could  bear  no  more,  the 
doors  were  opened,  and  he  was  rescued.1 

The  indignation  was  deep,  and  the  government  was 
afraid.  Endicott  sent  his  own  doctor,  but  the  sui'geon 
said  that  Brend's  flesh  would  "  rot  from  off  his  bones," 
and  he  must  die.  And  now  the  mob  grew  fierce  and 
demanded  justice  on  the  ruffian  who  had  done  this 
deed,  and  the  magistrates  nailed  a  paper  on  the 
church  door  promising  to  bring  him  to  trial. 

Then  it  was  that  the  true  spirit  of  his  order  blazed 
forth  in  Norton,  for  the  jailer  was  fashioned  in  his 
own  image,  and  he  threw  over  him  the  mantle  of  the 
holy  church.  He  made  the  magistrates  take  the  paper 
down,  rebuking  them  for  their  faintness  of  heart,  say- 
ing to  them :  — 

William  "  Brend  endeavoured  to  beat  our  gospel 
ordinances  black  and  blue,  if  he  then  be  beaten  black 
1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  66. 


336  THE   QUAKERS. 

and  blue,  it  is  but  just  upon  him,  and  I  will  appear  in 
his  behalf  that  did  so."  1  And  the  man  was  justified, 
and  commanded  to  whip  "  the  Quakers  in  prison  .  .  . 
twice  a  week,  if  they  refused  to  work,  and  the  first 
time  to  add  five  stripes  to  the  former  ten,  and  each 
time  to  add  three  to  them.  .  .  .  Which  order  ye  sent 
to  the  jaylor,  to  strengthen  his  hands  to  do  yet  more 
cruelly ;  being  somewhat  weakened  by  the  fright  of 
his  former  doings."  2 

After  this  the  Southwicks,  being  still  unable  to  ob- 
tain their  freedom,  sent  the  following  letter  to  the 
magistrates,  which  is  a  good  example  of  the  writings 
of  these  "  coarse,  blustering,  .  .  .  impudent  fanat- 
ics :  "  3  — 

This  to  the  Magistrates  at  Court  in  Salem. 

FRIENDS, 

Whereas  it  was  your  pleasures  to  commit  us,  whose 
names  are  under-written,  to  the  house  of  correction 
in  Boston,  altho'  the  Lord,  the  righteous  Judge  of 
heaven  and  earth,  is  our  witness,  that  we  had  done 
nothing  worthy  of  stripes  or  of  bonds ;  and  we  being 
committed  by  your  court,  to  be  dealt  withal  as  the 
law  provides  for  foreign  Quakers,  as  ye  please  to  term 
us ;  and  having  some  of  us,  suffered  your  law  and 
pleasures,  now  that  which  we  do  expect,  is,  that  where- 
as we  have  suffered  your  law,  so  now  to  be  set  free  by 

1  Besse,  ii.  186. 

2  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  67. 
«  As  to  Roger  Williams,  p.  138. 


THE   QUAKERS.  337 

the  same  law,  as  your  manner  is  with  strangers,  and 
not  to  put  us  in  upon  the  account  of  one  law,  and 
execute  another  law  upon  us,  of  which,  according  to 
your  own  manner,  we  were  never  convicted  as  the  law 
expresses.  If  you  had  sent  us  upon  the  account  of 
your  new  law,  we  should  have  expected  the  jaylor's 
order  to  have  been  on  that  account,  which  that  it  was 
not,  appears  by  the  warrant  which  we  have,  and  the 
punishment  which  we  bare,  as  four  of  us  were  whipp'd, 
among  whom  was  one  that  had  formerly  been  whipp'd, 
so  now  also  according  to  your  former  law.  Friends, 
let  it  not  be  a  small  thing  in  your  eyes,  the  exposing 
as  much  as  in  you  lies,  our  families  to  ruiue.  It 's 
not  unknown  to  you  the  season,  and  the  time  of  the 
year,  for  those  that  live  of  husbandry,  and  what  their 
cattle  and  families  may  be  exposed  unto;  and  also 
such  as  live  on  trade ;  we  know  if  the  spirit  of  Christ 
did  dwell  and  rule  in  you,  these  things  would  take 
impression  on  your  spirits.  What  our  lives  and 
conversations  have  been  in  that  place,  is  well  known ; 
and  what  we  now  suffer  for,  is  much  for  false  reports, 
and  ungrounded  jealousies  of  heresie  and  sedition. 
These  thing  lie  upon  us  to  lay  before  you.  As  for  our 
parts,  we  have  true  peace  and  rest  in  the  Lord  in  all 
our  sufferings,  and  are  made  willing  in  the  power  and 
strength  of  God,  freely  to  offer  up  our  lives  in  this 
cause  of  God,  for  which  we  suffer;  Yea  and  we  do 
find  (through  grace)  the  enlargements  of  God  in  our 
imprisoned  state,  to  whom  alone  we  commit  ourselves 
and  families,  for  the  disposing  of  us  according  to  his 


338  THE   QUAKERS. 

infinite  wisdom   and  pleasure,  in  whose  love  is   our 
rest  and  life. 


From  the  House  of  Bondage  in  Boston  wherein 
we  are  made  captives  by  the  wills  of  men,  al- 
though made  free  by  the  Son,  John  8,  36.  In 
which  we  quietly  rest,  this  16th  of  the  5th 
month,  1658. 

LAWRENCE  \ 

CASSANDRA  V  SOUTHWICK 
JOSIAH        j 
SAMUEL  SHATTOCK 
JOSHUA  BuFFUM.1 

What  the  prisoners  apprehended  was  being  kept  in 
prison  and  punished  under  an  ex  post  facto  law,  and  this 
was  precisely  what  was  done.  When  brought  into  court 
they  demanded  to  be  told  the  crime  wherewith  they 
were  charged.  They  were  answered :  "It  was  ' En- 
tertaining the  Quakers  who  were  their  enemies ;  not 
coming  to  their  meetings ;  and  meeting  by  themselves.' 
They  adjoyned,  '  That  as  to  those  things  they  had  al- 
ready fastned  their  law  upon  them.'  ...  So  ye  had 
nothing  left  but  the  hat,  for  which  (then)  ye  had  no 
law.  They  answered  —  that  they  intended  no  offence 
to  ye  in  coming  thither  .  .  .  for  it  was  not  their  man- 
ner to  have  to  do  with  courts.  And  as  for  withdraw- 
ing from  their  meetings,  or  keeping  on  their  hats,  or 
doing  anything  in  contempt  of  them,  or  their  laws, 
1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  74. 


THE   QUAKERS.  339 

they  said,  the  Lord  was  their  witness  ...  that  they 
did  it  not.  So  ye  rose  up,  and  bid  the  jaylor  take 
them  away."  l 

An  acquittal  seemed  certain ;  yet  it  was  intoler- 
able to  the  clergy  that  these  accursed  blasphemers 
should  elude  them  when  they  held  them  in  their 
grasp ;  wherefore,  the  next  day,  the  Rev.  Charles 
Chauncy,  preaching  at  Thursday  lecture,  thus  taught 
Christ's  love  for  men :  "  Suppose  ye  should  catch  six 
wolves  in  a  trap  .  .  .  [there  were  six  Salem  Quakers] 
and  ye  cannot  prove  that  they  killed  either  sheep  or 
lambs  ;  and  now  ye  have  them  they  will  neither  bark 
nor  bite :  yet  they  have  the  plain  marks  of  wolves. 
Now  I  leave  it  to  your  consideration  whether  ye  will 
let  them  go  alive,  yea  or  nay."  2 

Then  the  divines  had  a  consultation,  "and  your 
priests  were  put  to  it,  how  to  prove  them  as  your  law 
had  said :  and  ye  had  them  before  you  again,  and 
your  priests  were  with  you,  every  one  by  his  side  (so 
came  ye  to  your  court)  and  John  Norton  must  ask 
them  questions,  on  purpose  to  ensnare  them,  that  by 
your  standing  law  for  hereticks,  ye  might  condemn 
them  (as  your  priests  before  consulted)  and  when  this 
would  not  do  (for  the  Lord  was  with  them,  and  made 
them  wiser  than  your  teachers)  ye  made  a  law  to  ban- 
ish them,  upon  pain  of  death.  .  .  ."  s 

After  a  violent  struggle,  the  ministers,  under  Nor- 
ton's lead,  succeeded,  on  the  19th  of  October,  1658, 

1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  85. 

3  Idem,  pp.  85,  86.  8  Idem,   p.  87. 


340  THE   QUAKERS. 

in  forcing  the  capital  act  through  the  legislature, 
which  contained  a  clause  making  the  denial  of  rever- 
ence to  superiors,  or  in  other  words,  the  wearing  the 
hat,  evidence  of  Quakerism.1 

On  that  very  day  the  bench  ordered  the  prisoners 
at  Ipswich  to  be  brought  to  the  bar,  and  the  South- 
wicks  were  bidden  to  depart  before  the  spring  elec- 
tions.2 They  did  not  go,  and  in  May  were  once  more 
in  the  felon's  dock.  They  asked  what  wrong  they 
had  done.  The  judges  told  them  they  were  rebellious 
for  not  going  as  they  had  been  commanded.  The  old 
man  and  woman  piteously  pleaded  "  that  they  had  no 
otherwhere  to  go,"  nor  had  they  done  anything  to 
deserve  banishment  or  death,  though  .£100  (all  they 
had  in  the  world)  had  been  taken  from  them  for 
meeting  together.3 

"  Major-General  Dennison  replied,  that  '  they  stood 
against  the  authority  of  the  country,  in  not  submitting 
to  their  laws  :  that  he  should  not  go  about  to  speak 
much  concerning  the  error  of  their  judgments :  but,' 
added  he,  '  you  and  we  are  not  able  well  to  live  to- 
gether, and  at  present  the  power  is  in  our  hand,  and 
therefore  the  stronger  must  send  off.'  "  4 

The  father,  mother,  and  son  were  banished  under 
pain  of  death.  The  aged  couple  were  sent  to  Shelter 
Island,  but  their  misery  was  well-nigh  done ;  they 

1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  pp.  100,  101 ;  Mass.  Rec. 
vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  346. 

2  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  349. 

«  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  106.      4  Besse,  ii.  198. 


THE   QUAKERS.  341 

perished  within  a  few  days  of  each  other,  tortured  to 
death  by  flogging  and  starvation. 

Josiah  was  shipped  to  England,  but  afterward  re- 
turned, was  seized,  and  in  the  "  seventh  month,  1661, 
you  had  him  before  you,  and  at  which  according  to 
your  former  law,  he  should  have  been  tried  for  his 
life." 

"  But  the  great  occasion  you  took  against  him,  was 
his  hat,  which  you  commanded  him  to  pull  off :  '  He 
told  your  governour  he  could  not.'  You  said,  '  He 
would  not.'  He  told  you,  '  It  was  a  cross  to  his  will 
to  keep  it  on ;  .  .  .  and  that  he  could  not  do  it  for 
conscience  sake.'  .  .  .  But  your  governour  told  him, 
'  That  he  was  to  have  been  tryed  for  his  life,  but  that 
you  had  made  your  late  law  to  save  his  life,  which, 
you  said,  was  mercy  to  him.'  Then  he  asked  you, 
'  Whether  you  were  not  as  good  to  take  his  life  now, 
as  to  whip  him  after  your  manner,  twelve  or  fourteen 
times  at  the  cart's  tail,  through  your  towns,  and  then 
put  him  to  death  afterward  ? '  "  He  was  condemned 
to  be  flogged  through  Boston,  Roxbury,  and  Ded- 
ham ;  but  he,  when  he  heard  the  judgment,  "  with 
arms  stretched  out,  and  hands  spread  before  you,  said, 
'  Here  is  my  body,  if  you  want  a  further  testimony  of 
the  truth  I  profess,  take  it  and  tear  it  in  pieces  .  .  . 
it  is  freely  given  up,  and  as  for  your  sentence  I  matter 
it  not.'  " l 

This  coarse,  blustering,  impudent  fanatic  had,  in- 
deed, "  with  a  dogged  pertinacity  persisted  in  out- 
1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  pp.  354-356. 


342  THE   QUAKERS. 

rages  which "  had  driven  "  the  authorities  almost  to 
frenzy ; "  therefore  they  tied  him  to  a  cart  and  lashed 
him  for  fifteen  miles,  and  while  he  "  sang  to  the 
praise  of  God,"  his  tormentor  swung  with  all  his 
might  a  tremendous  two-handed  whip,  whose  knotted 
thongs  were  made  of  twisted  cat-gut ; l  "thence  he  was 
carried  fifteen  miles  from  any  town  into  the  wilder- 


ness. 


2 


An  end  had  been  made  of  the  grown  members  of 
the  family,  but  the  two  children  were  still  left.  To 
reach  them,  the  device  was  conceived  of  enforcing 
the  penalty  for  not  attending  church,  since  "  it  was 
well  known  they  had  no  estate,  their  parents  being  al- 
ready brought  to  poverty  by  their  rapacious  persecu- 
tors." 3 

Accordingly,  they  were  summoned  and  asked  to  ac- 
count for  their  absence  from  worship.  Daniel  an- 
swered "  that  if  they  had  not  so  persecuted  his  father 
and  mother  perhaps  he  might  have  come."  *  They 
were  fined ;  and  on  the  day  on  which  they  lost  their 
parents  forever,  the  sale  as  slaves  of  this  helpless  boy 
and  girl  was  authorized  to  satisfy  the  debt.5 

Edmund  Batter,  treasurer  of  Salem,  brought  the 
children  to  the  town,  and  went  to  a  shipmaster  who 
was  about  to  sail,  to  engage  a  passage  to  Barbadoes. 


New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  357,  note. 

Besse,  ii.  225. 

Sewel,  p.  223. 

New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  381. 

Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  366. 


THE   QUAKERS.  343 

The  captain  made  the  excuse  that  they  would  cor- 
rupt his  ship's  company.  "Oh,  no,"  said  Batter, 
"  you  need  not  fear  that,  for  they  are  poor  harmless 
creatures,  and  will  not  hurt  any  body."  ..."  Will 
they  not  so  ?  "  broke  out  the  sailor,  "  and  will  ye  offer 
to  make  slaves  of  so  harmless  creatures  ?  " l 

Thus  were  free-born  English  subjects  and  citizens 
of  Massachusetts  dealt  with  by  the  priesthood  that 
ruled  the  Puritan  Common  wealth. 

None  but  ecclesiastical  partisans  can  doubt  the  bear- 
ing of  such  evidence.  It  was  the  mortal  struggle  be- 
tween conservatism  and  liberality,  between  repression 
and  free  thought.  The  elders  felt  it  in  the  marrow  of 
their  bones,  and  so  declared  it  in  their  laws,  denoun- 
cing banishment  under  pain  of  death  against  those 
"  adhering  to  or  approoving  of  any  knoune  Quaker,  or 
the  tenetts  &  practices  of  the  Quakers,  .  .  .  manifest- 
ing thereby  theire  compljance  wth  those  whose  designe 
it  is  to  ouerthrow  the  order  established  in  church  and 
comonwealth."  2 

Dennison  spoke  with  an  unerring  instinct  when  he 
said  they  could  not  live  together,  for  the  faith  of  the 
Friends  was  subversive  of  a  theocracy.  Their  belief 
that  God  revealed  himself  directly  to  man  led  with 
logical  certainty  to  the  substitution  of  individual  judg- 
ment for  the  rules  of  conduct  dictated  by  a  sacred 
class,  whether  they  claimed  to  derive  their  authority 
from  their  skill  in  interpreting  the  Scriptures,  or  from 

i  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  112. 
a  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  1,  p.  346. 


344  THE   QUAKERS. 

traditions  preserved  by  Apostolic  Succession.  Each 
man,  therefore,  became,  as  it  were,  a  priest  unto  him- 
self, and  they  repudiated  an  ordained  ministry.  Hence, 
their  crime  resembled  that  of  Jeroboam,  the  son  of 
Nebat,  who  "  made  priests  of  the  lowest  of  the  people, 
which  were  not  of  the  sons  of  Levi ;  "  1  and  it  was  for 
this  reason  that  John  Norton  and  John  Endicott  re- 
solved upon  their  extermination,  even  as  Elisha  and 
Jehu  conspired  to  exterminate  the  house  of  Ahab. 

That  they  failed  was  due  to  no  mercy  for  their  vic- 
tims, nor  remorse  for  the  blood  they  made  to  flow,  but 
to  their  inability  to  control  the  people.  Nothing  is 
plainer  upon  the  evidence,  than  that  popular  sym- 
pathy was  never  with  the  ecclesiastics  in  their  fero- 
cious policy ;  and  nowhere  does  the  contrast  of  feeling 
shine  out  more  clearly  than  in  the  story  of  the  hanging 
of  Robinson  and  Stevenson. 

The  figure  of  Norton  towers  above  his  contempora- 
ries. He  held  the  administration  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hand,  for  Endicott  was  his  mouthpiece  ;  yet  even  he, 
backed  by  the  whole  power  of  the  clergy,  barely  suc- 
ceeded in  forcing  through  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  the 
statute  inflicting  death. 

"  The  priests  and  rulers  were  all  for  blood,  and  they 
pursued  it.  ...  This  the  deputies  withstood,  and  it 
could  not  pass,  and  the  opposition  grew  strong,  for  the 
thing  came  near.  Deacon  Wozel  was  a  man  much  af- 
fected therewith ;  and  being  not  well  at  that  time  that 

1  Jeroboam's  sin  is  discussed  in  Ne  Sutor,  p.  25  ;  Divine  Right 
0f  Infant  Baptism,  p.  26. 


THE   QUAKERS.  345 

he  supposed  the  vote  might  pass,  he  earnestly  desired 
the  speaker  ...  to  send  for  him  when  it  was  to  be, 
lest  by  his  absence  it  might  miscarry.  The  deputies 
that  were  against  the  .  .  .  law,  thinking  themselves 
strong  enough  to  cast  it  out,  forbore  to  send  for  him. 
The  vote  was  put  and  carried  in  the  affirmative,  — 
the  speaker  and  eleven  being  in  the  negative  and  thir- 
teen in  the  affirmative :  so  one  vote  carried  it ;  which 
troubled  Wozel  so  ...  that  he  got  to  the  court,  .  .  . 
and  wept  for  grief,  .  .  .  and  said  '  If  he  had  not  been 
able  to  go,  he  would  have  crept  upon  his  hands  and 
knees,  rather  than  it  should  have  been.'  "  l 

After  the  accused  had  been  condemned,  the  people, 
being  strongly  moved,  flocked  about  the  prison,  so 
that  the  magistrates  feared  a  rescue,  and  a  guard  was 
set. 

As  the  day  approached  the  murmurs  grew,  and  on 
the  morning  of  the  execution  the  troops  were  under 
arms  and  the  streets  patrolled.  Stevenson  and  Robin- 
son were  loosed  from  their  fetters,  and  Mary  Dyer, 
who  also  was  to  die,  walked  between  them;  and  so 
they  went  bravely  hand  in  hand  to  the  scaffold.  The 
prisoners  were  put  behind  the  drums,  and  their  voices 
drowned  when  they  tried  to  speak ;  for  a  great  multi- 
tude was  about  them,  and  at  a  word,  in  their  deep  ex- 
citement, would  have  risen.2 

As  the  solemn  procession  moved  along,  they  came  to 
where  the  Reverend  John  Wilson,  the  Boston  pastor, 

1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  pp.  101, 102. 

2  Idem,  pp.  122, 123. 


346  THE   QUAKERS. 

stood  with  others  of  the  clergy.  Then  Wilson  "fell  a 
taunting  at  Robinson,  and,  shaking  his  hand  in  a  light, 
scoffing  manner,  said,  '  Shall  such  Jacks  as  you  come 
in  before  authority  with  your  hats  on  ? '  with  many 
other  taunting  words."  Then  Robinson  replied,  "  Mind 
you,  mind  you,  it  is  for  the  not  putting  off  the  hat  we 
are  put  to  death."  l 

When  they  reached  the  gallows,  Robinson  calmly 
climbed  the  ladder  and  spoke  a  few  words.  He  told 
the  people  they  did  not  suffer  as  evil-doers,  but  as 
those  who  manifested  the  truth.  He  besought  them  to 
mind  the  light  of  Christ  within  them,  of  which  he  tes- 
tified and  was  to  seal  with  his  blood. 

He  had  said  so  much  when  Wilson  broke  in  upon 
him  :  "  Hold  thy  tongue,  be  silent ;  thou  art  going  to 
dye  with  a  lye  in  thy  mouth."  2  Then  they  seized  him 
and  bound  him,  and  so  he  died ;  and  his  body  was 
"cast  into  a  hole  of  the  earth,"  where  it  lay  uncovered. 

Even  the  voters,  the  picked  retainers  of  the  church, 
were  almost  equally  divided,  and  beyond  that  narrow 
circle  the  tide  of  sympathy  ran  strong. 

The  Rev.  John  Rayner  stood  laughing  with  joy  to 
see  Mary  Tomkins  and  Alice  Ambrose  flogged  through 
Dover,  on  that  bitter  winter  day ;  but  the  men  of 
Salisbury  cut  those  naked,  bleeding  women  from  the 
cart,  and  saved  them  from  their  awful  death. 

The  Rev.  John  Norton  sneered  at  the  tortures  of 
Brend,  and  brazenly  defended  his  tormentor ;  but  the 

1  New  England  Judged,  ed.  1703,  p.  124. 
s  Idem,  p.  126. 


THE   QUAKERS.  347 

Boston  mob  succored  the  victim  as  he  lay  fainting  on 
the  boards  of  his  dark  cell. 

The  Rev.  Charles  Chauncy,  preaching  the  word  of 
God,  told  his  hearers  to  kill  the  Southwicks  like 
wolves,  since  he  could  not  have  their  blood  by  law ; 
but  the  honest  sailor  broke  out  in  wrath  when  asked 
to  traffic  in  the  flesh  of  our  New  England  children. 

The  Rev.  John  Wilson  jeered  at  Robinson  on  his 
way  to  meet  his  death,  and  reviled  him  as  he  stood 
beneath  the  gibbet,  over  the  hole  that  was  his  grave ; 
but  even  the  savage  Endicott  knew  well  that  all  the 
trainbands  of  the  colony  could  not  have  guarded 
Christison  to  the  gallows  from  the  dungeon  where  he 
lay  condemned. 

Yet  awful  as  is  this  Massachusetts  tragedy,  it  is 
but  a  little  fragment  of  the  sternest  struggle  of  the 
modern  world.  The  power  of  the  priesthood  lies  in 
submission  to  a  creed.  In  their  onslaughts  on  rebel- 
lion they  have  exhausted  human  torments ;  nor,  in 
their  lust  for  earthly  dominion,  have  they  felt  remorse, 
but  rather  joy,  when  slaying  Christ's  enemies  and 
their  own.  The  horrors  of  the  Inquisition,  the  Mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew,  the  atrocities  of  Laud,  the 
abominations  of  the  Scotch  Kirk,  the  persecution  of 
the  Quakers,  had  one  object,  —  the  enslavement  of 
the  mind. 

Freedom  of  thought  is  the  greatest  triumph  over 
tyranny  that  brave  men  have  ever  won  ;  for  this  they 
fought  the  wars  of  the  Reformation ;  for  this  they 
have  left  their  bones  to  whiten  upon  unnumbered 


348  THE   QUAKERS. 

fields  of  battle ;  for  this  they  have  gone  by  thousands 
to  the  dungeon,  the  scaffold,  and  the  stake.  We  owe 
to  their  heroic  devotion  the  most  priceless  of  our 
treasures,  our  perfect  liberty  of  thought  and  speech ; 
and  all  who  love  our  country's  freedom  may  well  rev- 
erence the  memory  of  those  martyred  Quakers  by 
whose  death  and  agony  the  battle  in  New  England 
has  been  won. 


CHAPTER  VL 

THE   SCIRE  FACIAS. 

HAD  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  been  in  reality 
the  thing  which  its  historians  have  described  ;  had  it 
been  a  society  guided  by  men  devoted  to  civil  liberty, 
and  as  liberal  in  religion  as  was  consistent  with  the 
temper  of  their  age,  the  early  relations  of  Massachu- 
setts toward  Great  Britain  might  now  be  a  pleasanter 
study  for  her  children.  Cordiality  toward  Charles  I. 
would  indeed  have  been  impossible,  for  the  Puritans 
well  knew  the  fate  in  store  for  them  should  the  court 
triumph.  Gorges  was  the  representative  of  the  des- 
potic policy  toward  America,  and  so  early  as  1634, 
probably  at  his  instigation,  Laud  became  the  head  of 
a  commission,  with  absolute  control  over  the  planta- 
tions, while  the  next  year  a  writ  of  quo  warranto  was 
brought  against  the  patent.1  With  Naseby,  however, 
these  dangers  vanished,  and  thenceforward  there  would 
have  been  nothing  to  mar  an  affectionate  confidence 
in  both  Parliament  and  the  Protector. 

In  fact,  however,  Massachusetts  was  a  petty  state, 
too  feeble  for  independence,  yet  ruled  by  an  autocratic 
priesthood  whose  power  rested  upon  legislation  antag- 
onistic  to    English    law;   therefore   the   ecclesiastics 
1  See  introduction  to  New  Canaan,  Prince  Soc.  ed. 


350  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

were  jealous  of  Parliament,  and  had  little  love  for 
Cromwell,  whom  they  found  wanting  in  "  a  thorough 
testimony  against  the  blasphemers  of  our  days."  l 

The  result  was  that  the  elders  clung  obstinately  to 
every  privilege  which  served  their  ends,  and  repudi- 
ated every  obligation  which  conflicted  with  their  am- 
bition. Clerical  political  morality  seldom  fails  to  be 
instructive,  and  the  following  example  is  typical  of  that 
peculiar  mode  of  reasoning.  The  terms  of  admission 
to  ordinary  corporations  were  fixed  by  each  organiza- 
tion for  itself,  but  in  case  of  injustice  the  courts  could 
give  relief  by  setting  aside  unreasonable  ordinances, 
and  sometimes  Parliament  itself  would  interfere,  as  it 
did  upon  the  petition  against  the  exactions  of  the  Mer- 
chant Adventurers.  Now  there  was  nothing  upon 
which  the  theocracy  more  strongly  insisted  than  that 
"  our  charter  doeth  expresly  give  vs  an  absolute  & 
free  choyce  of  our  oune  members ; "  2  because  by  means 
of  a  religious  test  the  ministers  could  pack  the  con- 
stituencies with  their  tools  ;  but  on  the  other  hand 
they  as  strenuously  argued  "  that  no  appeals  or  other 
ways  of  interrupting  our  proceedings  do  lie  against 
us,"  3  because  they  well  knew  that  any  bench  of  judges 
before  whom  such  questions  might  come  would  annul 
the  most  vital  of  their  statutes  as  repugnant  to  the 
British  Constitution. 

Unfortunately  for  these  churchmen,  their  objects, 

1  Diary  of  Hull,  Palfrey,  ii.  400,  401,  and  note. 
a  Mass.  Rec.  v.  287. 
«  Winthrop,  ii.  283. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  351 

as  ecclesiastical  politicians,  could  seldom  be  reconciled 
with  their  duty  as  English  subjects.  At  the  outset, 
though  made  a  corporation  within  the  realm,  they  felt 
constrained  to  organize  in  America  to  escape  judicial 
supervision.  They  were  then  obliged  to  incorporate 
towns  and  counties,  to  form  a  representative  assembly, 
and  to  levy  general  taxes  and  duties,  none  of  which 
things  they  had  power  to  do.  Still,  such  irregularities 
as  these,  had  they  been  all,  most  English  statesmen 
would  have  overlooked  as  unavoidable.  But  when  it 
came  to  adopting  a  criminal  code  based  on  the  Penta- 
teuch, and,  in  support  of  a  dissenting  form  of  worship, 
fining  and  imprisoning,  whipping,  mutilating,  and 
hanging  English  subjects  without  the  sanction  of 
English  law ;  when,  finally,  the  Episcopal  Church  it- 
self was  suppressed,  and  peaceful  subjects  were  ex- 
cluded from  the  corporation  for  no  reason  but  because 
they  partook  of  her  communion,  and  were  forbidden 
to  seek  redress  by  appealing  to  the  courts  of  their 
king,  it  seems  impossible  that  any  self-respecting  gov- 
ernment could  have  long  been  passive. 

At  the  Restoration  Massachusetts  had  grown  arro- 
gant from  long  impunity.  She  thought  the  time  of 
reckoning  would  never  come,  and  even  in  trivial  mat- 
ters seemed  to  take  a  pride  in  slighting  Great  Britain 
and  in  vaunting  her  independence.  Laws  were  en- 
acted in  the  name  of  the  Commonwealth,  the  king's 
name  was  not  in  the  writs,  nor  were  the  royal  arms 
upon  the  public  buildings ;  even  the  oath  of  allegiance 
was  rejected,  though  it  was  unobjectionable  in  form. 


352  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

She  had  grown  to  believe  that  were  offence  taken  she 
had  only  to  invent  pretexts  for  delay,  to  have  her 
fault  forgotten  in  some  new  revolution.  General 
Denison,  at  the  Quaker  trials,  put  the  popular  belief 
in  a  nut-shell:  "  This  year  ye  will  go  to  complain  to 
the  Parliament,  and  the  next  year  they  will  send  to 
see  how  it  is  ;  and  the  third  year  the  government  is 
changed."  l 

But,  beside  these  irritating  domestic  questions,  the 
corporation  was  bitterly  embroiled  with  its  neighbors. 
Samuel  Gorton  and  his  friends  were  inhabitants  of 
Rhode  Island,  and  were,  no  doubt,  troublesome  to  deal 
with;  but  their  particular  offence  was  ecclesiastical. 
An  armed  force  was  sent  over  the  border  and  they 
were  seized.  They  were  brought  to  Boston  and  tried 
on  the  charge  of  being  "  blasphemous  enemies  of  the 
true  religion  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  all  his 
holy  ordinances,  and  likewise  of  all  civil  government 
among  his  people,  and  particularly  within  this  juris- 
diction." 2  All  the  magistrates  but  three  thought  that 
Gorton  ought  to  die,  but  he  was  finally  sentenced  to 
an  imprisonment  of  barbarous  cruelty.  The  invasion 
of  Rhode  Isknd  was  a  violation  of  an  independent 
jurisdiction,  the  arrest  was  illegal,  the  sentence  an 
arbitrary  outrage.3 

Massachusetts  was  also  at  feud  in  the  north,  and 
none  of  her  quarrels  brought  more  serious  results  than 

1  Sewel,  p.  280.  2  Winthrop,  ii.  146. 

8  See  paper  of  Mr.  Charles  Deane,  New  Eng.  Historical  and 
Genealogical  Register,  vol.  iv. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  353 

this  with  the  proprietors  of  New  Hampshire  and 
Maine.  The  grant  in  the  charter  was  of  all  lands 
between  the  Charles  and  Merrimack,  and  also  all 
lands  within  the  space  of  three  miles  to  the  northward 
of  the  said  Merrimack,  or  to  the  northward  of  any 
part  thereof,  and  all  lands  lying  within  the  limits 
aforesaid  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  South  Sea. 

Clearly  the  intention  was  to  give  a  margin  of  three 
miles  beyond  a  river  which  was  then  supposed  to  flow 
from  west  to  east,  and  accordingly  the  territory  to  the 
north,  being  unoccupied,  was  granted  to  Mason  and 
Gorges.  Nor  was  this  construction  questioned  before 
1639  —  the  General  Court  having  a*  an  early  day 
measured  off  the  three  miles  and  marked  the  boun- 
dary by  what  was  called  the  Bound  House. 

Gradually,  however,  as  it  became  known  that  the 
Merrimack  rose  to  the  north,  larger  claims  were  made. 
In  1641  the  four  New  Hampshire  towns  were  ab- 
sorbed with  the  consent  of  their  inhabitants,  who  thus 
gained  a  regular  government ;  another  happy  con- 
sequence was  the  settlement  of  sundry  eminent  di- 
vines, by  whose  ministrations  the  people  "  were  very 
much  civilized  and  reformed." 1 

In  1652  a  survey  was  made  of  the  whole  river,  and 
43°  40'  12"  was  fixed  as  the  latitude  of  its  source.  A 
line  extended  east  from  three  miles  north  of  this  point 
came  out  near  Portland,  and  the  intervening  space 
was  forthwith  annexed.  The  result  of  such  a  policy 
was  that  Charles  had  hardly  been  crowned  before 
1  deal's  New  England,  i.  210. 


354  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

complaints  poured  in  from  every  side.  Quakers,  Bap- 
tists, Episcopalians,  all  who  had  suffered  persecution, 
flocked  to  the  foot  of  the  throne;  and  beside  these 
came  those  who  had  been  injured  in  their  estates,  fore- 
most of  whom  were  the  heirs  of  Mason  and  Gorges. 
The  pressure  was  so  great  and  the  outcry  so  loud  that, 
in  September,  1660,  it  was  thought  in  London  a  gov- 
ernor-general would  be  sent  to  Boston ; 1  and,  in  point 
of  fact,  almost  the  first  communication  between  the 
king  and  his  colony  was  his  order  to  spare  the  Qua- 
kers. 

The  outlook  was  gloomy,  and  there  was  hesitation 
as  to  the  course 'to  pursue.  At  length  it  was  decided 
to  send  Norton  and  Bradstreet  to  England  to  present 
an  address  and  protect  the  public  interests.  The  mis- 
sion was  not  agreeable ;  Norton  especially  was  reluct- 
ant, and  with  reason,  for  he  had  been  foremost  in  the 
Quaker  persecutions,  and  was  probably  aware  th?t  in 
the  eye  of  English  law  the  executions  were  homicide. 

However,  after  long  vacillation,  "  the  Lord  so  en- 
couraged and  strengthened  "  his  heart  that  he  ven- 
tured to  sail.2  So  far  as  the  crown  was  concerned 
apprehension  was  needless,  for  Lord  Clarendon  was 
prime  minister,  whose  policy  toward  New  England 
was  throughout  wise  and  moderate,  and  the  agents 
were  well  received.  Still  they  were  restless  in  Lon- 
don, and  Sewel  tells  an  anecdote  which  may  partly 
account  for  their  impatience  to  be  gone. 

1  Leverett  to  Endicott.    Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  40. 

2  Feb.  11,  1661-2.     Palfrey,  ii.  5'J4. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  355 

"  Now  the  deputies  of  New  England  came  to  Lon- 
don, and  endeavored  to  clear  themselves  as  much  as 
possible,  but  especially  priest  Norton,  who  bowed  no 
less  reverently  before  the  archbishop,  than  before  the 
king.  .  .  . 

"  They  would  fain  have  altogether  excused  them- 
selves ;  and  priest  Norton  thought  it  sufficient  to  say 
that  he  did  not  assist  in  the  bloody  trial,  nor  had  ad- 
vised to  it.  But  John  Copeland,  whose  ear  was  cut 
off  at  Boston,  charged  the  contrary  upon  him :  and  G. 
Fox,  the  elder,  got  occasion  to  speak  with  them  in 
the  presence  of  some  of  his  friends,  and  asked  Simon 
Broadstreet,  one  of  the  New  England  magistrates, 
'  whether  he  had  not  a  hand  in  putting  to  death  those 
they  nicknamed  Quakers?'  He  not  being  able  to 
deny  this  confessed  he  had.  Then  G.  Fox  asked  him 
and  his  associates  that  were  present,  '  whether  they 
would  acknowledge  themselves  to  be  subjects  to  the 
laws  of  England  ?  and  if  they  c^id  by  what  law  they 
had  put  his  friends  to  death  ? '  They  answered, 
'They  were  subjects  to  the  laws  of  England  ;  and  they 
had  put  his  friends  to  death  by  the  same  law,  as  the 
Jesuits  were  put  to  death  in  England.'  Hereupon 
G.  Fox  asked,  '  whether  they  did  believe  that  those 
his  friends,  whom  they  had  put  to  death,  were  Jesuits, 
or  jesuitically  affected  ? '  They  said  '  Nay.'  '  Then,' 
replied  G.  Fox,  '  ye  have  murdered  them  ;  for  since  ye 
put  them  to  death  by  the  law  that  Jesuits  are  put  to 
death  here  in  England,  it  plainly  appears,  you  have 
put  them  to  death  arbitrarily,  without  any  law.'  Thus 


356  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

Broadstreet,  finding  himself  and  his  company  ensnar'd 
by  their  own  words,  ask'd,  *  Are  you  come  to  catch 
us?'  But  he  told  them  'They  had  catch'd  them- 
selves, and  they  might  justly  be  questioned  for  their 
lives  ;  and  if  the  father  of  William  Robinson  (one  of 
those  that  were  put  to  death)  were  in  town,  it  was 
probable  he  would  question  them,  and  bring  their  lives 
into  jeopardy.  For  he  not  being  of  the  Quakers  per- 
suasion, would  perhaps  not  have  so  much  regard  to 
the  point  of  forbearance,  as  they  had.'  Broadstreet 
seeing  himself  thus  in  danger  began  to  flinch  and  to 
sculk ;  for  some  of  the  old  royalists  were  earnest  with 
the  Quakers  to  prosecute  the  New  England  perse- 
cutors. But  G.  Fox  and  his  friends  said,  '  They  left 
them  to  the  Lord,  to  whom  vengeance  belonged,  and 
he  would  repay  it.'  Broadstreet  however,  not  think- 
ing it  safe  to  stay. in  England,  left  the  city,  and  with 
his  companions  went  back  again  to  New  England."  l 

The  following  June  the  agents  were  given  the  king's 
answer 2  to  their  address  and  then  sailed  for  home. 
It  is  certainly  a  most  creditable  state  paper.  The 
people  of  Massachusetts  were  thanked  for  their  good 
will,  they  were  promised  oblivion  for  the  past,  and 
were  assured  that  they  should  have  their  charter  con- 
firmed to  them  and  be  safe  in  all  their  privileges  and 
liberties,  provided  they  would  make  certain  reforms  in 
their  government.  They  were  required  to  repeal  such 
statutes  as  were  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England,  to 

1  Sewel,  p.  288. 

2  1662,  June  28. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  357 

take  the  oath  of  allegiance,  and  to  administer  justice 
in  the  king's  name.  And  then  followed  two  proposi- 
tions that  were  crucial :  "  And  since  the  principle 
and  foundation  of  that  charter  was  and  is  the  freedom 
of  liberty  of  conscience,  wee  do  hereby  charge  and 
require  you  that  that  freedom  and  liberty  be  duely 
admitted,"  especially  in  favor  of  those  "  that  desire  to 
use  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer."  And  secondly, 
"  that  all  the  freeholders  of  competent  estates,  not 
vicious  in  conversations,  orthodox  in  religion  (though 
of  different  perswasions  concerning  church  govern- 
ment) may  have  their  vote  in  the  election  of  all  offi- 
cers civill  or  millitary."  1 

However  judicious  these  reforms  may  have  been,  or 
howsoever  strictly  they  conformed  with  the  spirit  of 
English  law,  was  immaterial.  -They  struck  at  the 
root  of  the  secular  power  of  the  clergy,  and  they 
roused  deep  indignation.  The  agents  had  braved  no 
little  danger,  and  had  shown  no  little  skill  in  behalf 
of  the  commonwealth ;  and  the  fate  of  John  Norton 
enables  us  to  realize  the  rancor  of  theological  feeling. 
The  successor  of  Cotton,  by  general  consent  the  lead- 
ing minister,  in  some  respects  the  most  eminent  man 
in  Massachusetts,  he  had  undertaken  a  difficult  mis- 
sion against  his  will,  in  which  he  had  acquitted  him- 
self well ;  yet  on  his  return  he  was  so  treated  by  his 
brethren  and  friends  that  he  died  in  the  spring  of  a 
broken  heart.2 

1  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  101-103. 

2  April  5,  1663. 


358  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

The  General  Court  took  no  notice  of  the  king's  de- 
mands except  to  order  the  writs  to  run  in  the  royal 
name.1  And  it  is  a  sign  of  the  boldness,  or  else  of 
the  indiscretion,  of  those  in  power,  that  this  crisis  was 
chosen  for  striking  a  new  coin,2  —  an  act  confessedly 
illegal  and  certain  to  give  offence  in  England,  both  as 
an  assumption  of  sovereignty  and  an  interference  with 
the  currency. 

From  the  first  Lord  Clarendon  paid  some  attention 
to  colonial  affairs,  and  he  appears  to  have  been  much 
dissatisfied  with  the  condition  in  which  he  found 
them.  At  length,  in  1664,  he  decided  to  send  a  com- 
mission to  New  England  to  act  upon  the  spot. 

Great  pressure  must  have  been  brought  by  some 
who  had  suffered,  for  Samuel  Maverick,  the  Epis- 
copalian, who  had-  been  fined  and  imprisoned  in 
1646  for  petitioning  with  Childe,  was  made  a  mem- 
ber. Colonel  Richard  Nichols,  the  head  of  the  board, 
was  a  man  of  ability  and  judgment ;  the  choice  of  Sir 
Robert  Carr  and  Colonel  George  Cartwright  was  less 
judicious. 

The  commissioners  were  given  a  public  and  private 
set  of  instructions,3  and  both  were  admirable.  They 
were  to  examine  the  condition  of  the  country  and  its 
laws,  and,  if  possible,  to  make  some  arrangement  by 
which  the  crown  might  have  a  negative  at  least  upon 
the  choice  of  the  governor ;  they  were  to  urge  the  re. 

1  Oct.  8,  1662.    Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  58. 

2  1662,  May  7. 

8  Public  Instructions,  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  459. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  359 

forms  already  demanded  by  the  king,  especially  a 
larger  toleration,  for  "  they  doe  in  truth  deny  that 
liberty  of  conscience  to  each  other,  which  is  equally 
provided  for  and  granted  to  every  one  of  them  by 
their  charter."  l  They  were  directed  to  be  concilia- 
tory toward  the  people,  and  under  no  circumstances 
to  meddle  with  public  worship,  nor  were  they  to  press 
for  any  sudden  enforcement  of  the  revenue  acts.  On 
one  point  alone  they  were  to  insist :  they  were  in- 
structed to  sit  to  hear  appeals  in  causes  in  which 
the  parties  alleged  they  had  been  wronged  by  colo- 
nial decisions. 

Unquestionably  the  chancellor  was  right  in  prin- 
ciple. The  only  way  whereby  such  powerful  corpora- 
tions as  the  trade -guilds  or  the  East  India  Company 
could  be  kept  from  acts  of  oppression  was  through  the 
appellate  jurisdiction,  by  which  means  their  enact- 
ments could  be  brought  before  the  courts,  and  those 
annulled  which  in  the  opinion  of  the  judges  tran- 
scended the  charters.  The  Company  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay  was  a  corporation  having  jurisdiction  over 
many  thousand  English  subjects,  only  a  minority  of 
whom  were  freemen  and  voters.  So  long,  therefore, 
as  she  remained  within  the  empire,  the  crown  was 
bound  to  see  that  the  privileges  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution were  not  denied  within  her  territory.  Yet, 
though  this  is  true,  it  is  equally  certain  that  the  erec- 
tion of  a  commission  of  appeal  without  an  act  of  Par- 
liament was  irregular.  The  stretch  of  prerogative, 
1  Private  Instructions,  O'Callayhan  Documents,  iii.  58. 


360  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

nevertheless,  cannot  be  considered  oppressive  when  it 
is  remembered  that  Massachusetts  was  a  corporation 
which  had  escaped  from  the  realm  to  avoid  judicial 
process,  and  which  refused  to  appear  and  plead ;  hence 
Lord  Clarendon  had  but  this  alternative :  he  could 
send  judges  to  sit  upon  the  spot,  or  he  could  proceed 
against  the  charter  in  London.  The  course  he  chose 
may  have  been  illegal,  but  it  was  the  milder  of  the  two. 

The  commissioners  landed  on  July  23,  1664,  but 
they  did  not  stay  in  Boston.  Their  first  business  was 
to  subdue  the  Dutch  at  New  York,  and  they  soon  left 
to  make  the  attack.  The  General  Court  now  re- 
curred, for  the  first  time,  to  the  dispatch  which  their 
agents  had  brought  home,  and  proceeded  to  amend 
the  law  relating  to  the  franchise.  They  extended 
the  qualification  by  enacting  that  Englishmen  who 
presented  a  certificate  under  the  hands  of  the  minis- 
ter of  the  town  that  they  were  orthodox  in  religion 
and  not  vicious  in  life,  and  who  paid,  beside,  10s.  at 
a  single  rate,  might  become  freemen,  as  well  as  those 
who  were  church  -  members.1  The  effect  of  such  a 
change  could  hardly  have  been  toward  liberality, 
rather,  probably,  toward  concentration  of  power  in 
the  church.  However  slight,  there  was  some  popular 
control  over  the  rejection  of  an  applicant  to  join  a 
congregation ;  but  giving  a  certificate  was  an  act  that 
must  have  depended  on  the  pastor's  will  alone. 

The  court  then  drew  up  an  address  to  the  king  : 
u  If  your  poore  subjects,  .  .  .  doe  .  .  .  prostrate 
1  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  117. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  361 

tliemselues  at  your  royal  feets,  &  begg  yor  favor,  wee 
hope  it  will  be  graciously  accepted  by  your  inajestje, 
and  that  as  the  high  place  you  sustejne  on  earth 
doeth  number  you  here  among  the  gods,  [priests  can 
cringe  as  well  as  torture]  so  you  will  jmitate  the 
God  of  heaven,  in  being  ready  ...  to  receive  their 
crjes.  .  .  ."  l  And  he  was  implored  to  reflect  on  the 
affliction  of  heart  it  was  to  them,  that  their  sins  had 
provoked  God  to  permit  their  adversaries  to  procure 
a  commission,  under  the  great  seal,  to  four  persons  to 
hear  appeals.  When  this  address  reached  London  it 
caused  surprise.  The  chancellor  was  annoyed.  He 
wrote  to  America,  pointing  out  that  His  Majesty  would 
hardly  think  himself  well  used  at  complaints  before 
a  beginning  had  been  made,  and  a  demand  that  his 
commission  should  be  revoked  before  his  commission- 
ers had  been  able  to  deliver  their  instructions.  "  I 
know,"  he  said,  "they  are  expressly  inhibited  from 
intermedling  with,  or  instructing  the  administration 
of  justice,  according  to  the  formes  observed  there  ;  but 
if  in  truth,  in  any  extraordinary  case,  the  proceedings 
there  have  been  irregular,  and  against  the  rules  of 
justice,  as  some  particular  cases,  particularly  recom- 
mended to  them  by  His  Majesty,  seeme  to  be,  it  can- 
not be  presumed  that  His  Majesty  hath  or  will  leave 
his  subjects  of  New  England,  without  hope  of  re- 
dresse  by  an  appeale  to  him,  which  his  subjects  of  all 
his  other  kingdom es  have  free  liberty  to  make."  2 
The  campaign  against  New  York  was  short  and 
1  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  129.  2  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  465. 


362  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

successful,  and  the  commissioners  were  soon  at  lei- 
sure. As  they  had  reason  to  believe  that  Massachu- 
setts would  prove  stubborn,  they  judged  it  wiser  to 
begin  with  the  more  tractable  colonies  first.  They 
therefore  went  to  Plymouth,1  and,  on  their  arrival,  ac- 
cording to  their  instructions,  submitted  the  four  fol- 
lowing propositions :  — 

First.  That  all  householders  should  take  the  oath 
of  allegiance,  and  that  justice  should  be  administered 
in  the  king's  name. 

Second.  That  all  men  of  competent  estates  and  civil 
conversation,  though  of  different  judgments,  might  be 
admitted  to  be  freemen,  and  have  liberty  to  choose 
and  be  chosen  officers,  both  civil  and  military. 

Third.  That  all  men  and  women  of  orthodox  opin- 
ions, competent  knowledge,  and  civil  lives  not  scan- 
dalous, should  be  admitted  to  the  Lord's  Supper  [and 
have  baptism  for  their  children,  either  in  existing 
churches  or  their  own]. 

Fourth.  That  all  laws  .  .  .  derogatory  to  his  maj- 
esty should  be  repealed.2 

Substantially  the  same  proposals  were  made  sub- 
sequently in  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut.  They 
were  accepted  without  a  murmur.  A  few  appeal 
cases  were  heard,  and  the  work  was  done. 

The  commissioners  reported  their  entire  satisfaction 
to  the  government,  the  colonies  sent  loyal  addresses, 
and  Charles  returned  affectionate  answers. 

Massachusetts  alone  remained  to  be  dealt  with.,  but 

1  Feb.  1664^5.  "  Palfrey,  ii.  601. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  363 

her  temper  was  in  striking  contrast  to  that  of  the  rest 
of  New  England.  The  reason  is  obvious.  Nowhere 
else  was  there  a  fusion  of  church  and  state.  The 
people  had,  therefore,  no  oppressive  statutes  to  up- 
hold, nor  anything  to  conceal.  Provided  the  liberty 
of  English  subjects  was  secured  to  them  they  were 
content  to  obey  the  English  Constitution.  On  the 
other  hand,  Massachusetts  was  a  theocracy,  the  power 
of  whose  priesthood  rested  on  enactments  contrary  to 
British  institutions,  and  which,  therefore,  would  have 
been  annulled  upon  appeal.  Hence  the  clerical  party 
were  wild  with  fear  and  rage,  and  nerved  themselves 
to  desperate  resistance. 

"  But  alasse,  sir,  the  commission  impowering  those 
commisioners  to  heare  and  determine  all  cases  what- 
ever, .  .  .  should  it  take  place,  what  would  become 
of  our  civill  government  which  hath  binn,  under  God, 
the  heade  of  that  libertie  for  our  consciences  for  which 
the  first  adventurers  .  .  .  bore  all  ...  discourage- 
ments that  encountered  them  ...  in  this  wildernes." 
Rather  than  submit,  they  protested  they  had  "  sooner 
leave  our  place  and  all  our  pleasant  outward  injoy- 
ments."  1 

Under  such  conditions  a  direct  issue  was  soon 
reached.  The  General  Court,  in  answer  to  the  com- 
missioners' proposals,  maintained  that  the  observance 
of  their  charter  was  inconsistent  with  appeals ;  that 
they  had  already  provided  an  oath  of  allegiance  ;  that 
they  had  conformed  to  his  majesty's  requirements  in 
i  Court  to  Boyle.  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  113. 


364  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

regard  to  the  franchise  ;  and  lastly,  in  relation  to  tol- 
eration, there  was  no  equivocation.  "  Concerning  the 
vse  of  the  Comon  Prayer  Booke  "...  we  had  not 
become  "  voluntary  exiles  from  our  deare  native  coun- 
try, .  .  .  could  wee  haue  scene  the  word  of  God, 
warranting  us  to  performe  our  devotions  in  that  way, 
&  to  haue  the  same  set  vp  here ;  wee  conceive  it  is 
apparent  that  it  will  disturbe  our  peace  in  our  present 
enjoyments."  l 

Argument  was  useless.  The  so-called  oath  of  alle- 
giance was  not  that  required  by  Parliament ;  the  al- 
teration in  the  franchise  was  a  sham ;  while  the  two 
most  important  points,  appeals  to  England  and  tolera- 
tion in  religion,  were  rejected.  The  commissioners, 
therefore,  asked  for  a  direct  answer  to  this  question : 
"  Whither  doe  yow  acknowledge  his  majestjes  comis- 
sion  ...  to  be  of  full  force  ?  "  2  They  were  met  by 
evasion.  On  the  23d  of  May  they  gave  notice  that 
they  should  sit  the  next  morning  to  hear  the  case  of 
Thos.  Deane  et  al.  vs.  The  Gov.  &  Co.  of  Mass.  Bay, 
a  revenue  appeal.  Forthwith  the  General  Court  pro- 
claimed by  trumpet  that  the  hearing  would  not  be 
permitted. 

Coercion  was  impossible,  as  no  troops  were  at 
hand.  The  commissioners  accordingly  withdrew  and 
went  to  Maine,  which  they  proceeded  to  sever  from 
Massachusetts.3  In  this  they  followed  the  king's  in- 
structions, who  himself  acted  upon  the  advice  of  the 

1  1665.     Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  200. 

3  Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  204.  8  June,  1665. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  365 

law  officers  of  the  crown,  who  had  given  an  opinion 
sustaining  the  claim  of  Gorges.1 

The  triumph  was  complete.  All  that  the  English 
government  was  then  able  to  do  was  to  recall  the 
commissioners,  direct  that  agents  should  be  sent  to 
London  at  once,  and  forbid  interference  with  Maine. 
No  notice  was  taken  of  the  order  to  send  agents ;  and 
in  1668  possession  was  again  taken  of  the  province, 
and  the  courts  of  the  company  once  more  sat  in  the 
county  of  York.2 

This  was  the  culmination  of  the  Puritan  Common- 
wealth. The  clergy  were  exultant,  and  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Davenport  of  New  Haven  wrote  in  delight  to  Lev- 
erett :  — 

"  Their  claiming  power  to  sit  authoritatively  as  a 
court  for  appeales,  and  that  to  be  managed  in  an  ar- 
bitrary way,  was  a  manifest  laying  of  a  groundworke 
to  undermine  your  whole  government  established  by 
your  charter.  If  you  had  consented  thereunto,  you 
had  plucked  downe  with  your  owne  hands  that  house 
which  wisdom  had  built  for  you  and  your  posterity. 
...  As  for  the  solemnity  of  publishing  it,  in  three 
places,  by  sounding  a  trumpet,  I  believe  you  did  it 
upon  good  advice,  .  .  .  for  declaring  the  courage  and 
resolution  of  the  whole  countrey  to  defend  their  char- 
ter liberties  and  priviledges,  and  not  to  yeeld  up 
theire  right  voluntarily,  so  long  as  they  can  hold  it, 

1  Charles  II.'s  letter  to  Inhabitants  of  Maine.     Hutch.  Coll., 
Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  110  ;  Palf.  ii.  622. 

2  July,  1668.   Report  of  Com.    Mass.  Rec.  vol.  iv.  pt.  2,  p.  401. 


366  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

in  dependence  upon  God  in  Christ,  whose  interest  is 
in  it,  for  his  protection  and  blessing,  who  will  be  with 
you  while  you  are  with  him."  l 

Although  the  colonists  were  alarmed  at  their  own 
success,  there  was  nothing  to  fear.  At  no  time  before 
or  since  could  England  have  been  so  safely  defied. 
In  1664  war  was  begun  against  Holland;  1665  was 
the  year  of  the  plague ;  1666  of  the  fire.  In  June, 
1667,  the  Dutch,  having  dispersed  the  British  fleets, 
sailed  up  the  Medway,  and  their  guns  were  heard  in 
London.  Peace  became  necessary,  and  in  August 
Clarendon  was  dismissed  from  office.  The  discord 
between  the  crown  and  Parliament  paralyzed  the  na- 
tion, and  the  wastefulness  of  Charles  kept  him  always 
poor.  By  the  treaty  of  Dover  in  1670  he  became  a 
pensioner  of  Louis  XIV.  The  Cabal  followed,  prob- 
ably the  worst  ministry  England  ever  saw ;  and  in 
1672,  at  Clifford's  suggestion,  the  exchequer  was 
closed  and  the  debt  repudiated  to  provide  funds  for 
the  second  Dutch  war.  In  March  fighting  began,  and 
the  tremendous  battles  with  De  Ruyter  kept  the  navy 
in  the  Channel.  At  length,  in  1673,  the  Cabal  fell, 
and  Danby  became  prime  minister. 

Although  during  these  years  of  disaster  and  dis- 
grace Massachusetts  was  not  molested  by  Great  Britain, 
they  were  not  all  years  during  which  the  theocracy 
could  tranquilly  enjoy  its  victory. 

^     So  early  as  1671  the  movements  of  the  Indians 
began   to   give   anxiety;  and   in    1675    Philip's  War 

1  Davenport  to  Leverett.   Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  119. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  367 

broke  out,  which  brought  the  colony  to  the  brink  of 
ruin,  and  in  which  the  clergy  saw  the  judgment  of  ' 
God  against  the  Commonwealth,  for  tenderness  toward  < 
the  Quakers.1 

With  the  rise  of  Danby  a  more  regular  administra- 
tion opened,  and,  as  usual,  the  attention  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  fixed  upon  Massachusetts  by  the  clamors 
of  those  who  demanded  redress  for  injuries  alleged  to 
have  been  received  at  her  hands.  In  1674  the  heirs 
of  Mason  and  Gorges,  in  despair  at  the  reoccupation 
of  Maine,  proposed  to  surrender  their  claim  to  the 
king,  reserving  one  third  of  the  product  of  the  cus- 
toms for  themselves.  The  London  merchants  also 
had  become  restive  under  the  systematic  violation  of 
the  Navigation  Acts.  The  breach  in  the  revenue 
laws  had,  indeed,  been  long  a  subject  of  complaint, 
and  the  commissioners  had  received  instructions  relat- 
ing thereto ;  but  it  was  not  till  this  year  that  these 
questions  became  serious. 

The  first  statute  had  been  passed  by  the  Long  Par- 
liament, but  the  one  that  most  concerned  the  colo- 
nies was  not  enacted  till  1663.  The  object  was  not 
only  to  protect  English  shipping,  but  to  give  her  the 
entire  trade  of  her  dependencies.  To  that  end  it  was 
made  illegal  to  import  European  produce  into  any 
plantation  except  through  England ;  and,  conversely, 
colonial  goods  could  only  be  exported  by  being  landed 
in  England. 

The  theory  upon  which  this  legislation  was  based  is 
1  Reforming  Synod,  Magnolia,  bk.  5,  pt.  4. 


368  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

exploded ;  enforced,  it  would  have  crippled  commerce; 
but  it  was  then,  and  always  had  been,  a  dead  letter  at 
Boston.  New  England  was  fast  getting  its  share  of 
the  carrying  trade.  London  merchants  already  began 
to  feel  the  competition  of  its  cheap  and  untaxed  ships, 
and  manufacturers  to  complain  that  they  were  under- 
sold in  the  American  market,  by  goods  brought  direct 
fx'om  the  Continental  ports.  A  petition,  therefore, 
was  presented  to  the  king,  to  carry  the  law  into  effect. 
No  colonial  office  then  existed ;  the  affairs  of  the  de- 
pendencies were  assigned  to  a  committee  of  the  Privy 
Council,  called  the  Lords  of  Committee  of  Trade  and 
Plantations;  and  on  these  questions  being  referred 
by  them  to  the  proper  officers,  the  commissioners  of 
customs  sustained  the  merchants;  the  attorney-gen- 
eral, the  heirs  of  Mason  and  Gorges.1  The  famous 
Edward  Eandolph  now  appears.  The  government 
was  still  too  deeply  embarrassed  to  act  with  energy. 
A  temporizing  policy  Was  therefore  adopted ;  and  as 
the  experiment  of  a  commission  had  failed,  Randolph 
was  chosen  as  a  messenger  to  carry  the  petitions  and 
opinions  to  Massachusetts ;  together  with  a  letter  from 
the  king,  directing  that  agents  should  be  sent  in  an- 
swer thereto.  After  delivering  them,  he  was  ordered 
to  devote  himself  to  preparing  a  report  upon  the 
country.  He  reached  Boston  June  10,  1676.  Al- 
though it  was  a  time  of  terrible  suffering  from  the 
ravages  of  the  Indian  war,  the  temper  of  the  magis- 
trates was  harsher  than  ever. 

1  Palfrey,  iii.  281  ;  Chalmers's  Political  Annals  of  the  United 
Colonies,  p.  262. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  369 

The  repulse  of  the  commissioners  had  convinced 
them  that  Charles  was  not  only  lazy  and  ignorant,  but 
too  poor  to  use  force;  and  they  also  believed  him 
to  be  so  embroiled  with  Parliament  as  to  make  his 
overthrow  probable.  Filled  with  such  feelings,  their 
reception  of  Randolph  was  almost  brutal.  John  Lev- 
erett  was  governor,  who  seems  to  have  taken  pains 
to  mark  his  contempt  in  every  way  in  his  power. 
Randolph  was  an  able,  but  an  unscrupulous  man,  and 
probably  it  would  not  have  been  difficult  to  have  se- 
cured his  good-will.  Far  however  from  bribing,  or 
even  flattering  him,  they  so  treated  him  as  to  make 
him  the  bitterest  enemy  the  Puritan  Commonwealth 
ever  knew. 

Being  admitted  into  the  council  chamber,  he  deliv- 
ered the  letter.1  The  governor  opened  it,  glanced  at 
the  signature,  and,  pretending  never  to  have  heard  of 
Henry  Coventry,  asked  who  he  might  be.  He  was 
told  he  was  his  majesty's  principal  secretary  of  state. 
He  then  read  it  aloud  to  the  magistrates.  Even  the 
fierce  Endicott,  when  he  received  the  famous  "  mis- 
sive "  from  the  Quaker  Shattock,  "laid  off  his  hat  .  .  . 
[when]  he  look'd  upon  the  papers,"  2  as  a  mark  of 
respect  to  his  king ;  but  Leverett  and  his  council  re- 
mained covered.  Then  the  governor  said  "  that  the 
matters  therein  contained  were  very  inconsiderable 
things  and  easily  answered,  and  it  did  no  way  concern 
that  government  to  take  any  notice  thereof  ;  "  and  so 

1  Randolph's  Narrative.     Hutch.  Coll,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  240. 

2  Sewel,  p.  282. 


370  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

Randolph  was  dismissed.  Five  days  after  he  was 
again  sent  for,  and  asked  whether  he  "  intended  for 
London  by  that  ship  that  was  ready  to  saile  ?  "  If  so, 
he  could  have  a  duplicate  of  the  answer  to  the  king, 
as  the  original  was  to  go  by  other  hands.  He  replied 
that  he  had  other  business  in  charge,  and  inquired 
whether  they  had  well  considered  the  petitions,  and 
fixed  upon  their  agents  so  soon.  Leverett  did  not 
deign  to  answer,  but  told  him  "  he  looked  upon  nio 
as  Mr.  Mason's  agent,  and  that  I  might  withdraw." 
The  next  day  he  saw  the  governor  at  his  own  house, 
who  took  occasion,  when  Randolph  referred  to  the 
Navigation  Acts,  to  expound  the  legal  views  of  the 
theocracy.  "He  freely  declared  to  me  that  the 
lawes  made  by  your  majestie  and  your  Parliament 
obligeth  them  in  nothing  but  what  consists  with  the 
interest  of  that  colony,  that  the  legislative  power  is 
and  abides  in  them  solely  .  .  .  and  that  all  matters  in 
difference  are  to  be  concluded  by  their  finall  deter- 
mination, without  any  appeal  to  your  majestie,  and 
that  your  majestie  ought  not  to  retrench  their  liber- 
ties, but  may  enlarge  them."  l  One  last  interview  took 
place  when  Randolph  went  for  dispatches  for  Eng- 
land, after  his  return  from  New  Hampshire ;  then  he 
"  was  entertained  by  "  Leverett  "  with  a  sharp  reproof 
for  publishing  the  substance  of  my  errand  into  those 
parts,  contained  in  your  majestie's  letters,  .  .  .  tell- 
ing me  that  I  designed  to  make  a  mutiny.  ...  I 
told  him,  if  I  had  done  anything  amisse,  upon  com- 
1  Randolph's  Narrative.  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  243. 


THE  RCIRE  FACIAS.  371 

plaint  made  to  your  majestie  he  would  certainly  have 
justice  done  him."  .  .  . 

"At  my  departure  ...  he  ...  intreated  me  to 
give  a  favourable  report  of  the  country  and  the  mag- 
istrates thereof,  adding  that  those  that  blessed  them 
God  would  blesse,  and  those  that  cursed  them  God 
would  curse."  And  that  "  they  were  a  people  truely 
fearing  the  Lord  and  very  obedient  to  your  majes- 
tie." 1  And  so  the  royal  messenger  was  dismissed  in 
wrath,  to  tell  his  story  to  the  king. 

The  legislature  met  in  August,  1676,  and  a  decision 
had  to  be  made  concerning  agents.  On  the  whole, 
the  clergy  concluded  it  would  be  wiser  to  obey  the 
crown,  "  provided  they  be,  with  vtmost  care  &  cau- 
tion, qualified  as  to  their  instructions." 2  Accord- 
ingly, after  a  short  adjournment,  the  General  Court 
chose  William  Stoughton  and  Peter  Bulkely;  and 
having  strictly  limited  their  power  to  a  settlement  of 
the  territorial  controversy,  they  sent  them  on  their 
mission.3 

Almost  invariably  public  affairs  were  seen  by  the 
envoys  of  the  Company  in  a  different  light  from  that 
in  which  they  were  viewed  by  the  clerical  party  at 
home,  and  these  particularly  had  not  been  long  in 
London  before  they  became  profoundly  alarmed. 
There  was,  indeed,  reason  for  grave  apprehension. 
The  selfish  and  cruel  policy  of  the  theocracy  had 
borne  its  natural  fruit :  without  an  ally  in  the  world, 

1  Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  248. 

2  Mass.  Rec.  v.  99.  8  Mass.  Rec.  v.  114. 


372  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

Massachusetts  was  beset  by  enemies.  Quakers,  Bap- 
tists, and  Episcopalians  whom  she  had  persecuted  and 
exiled ;  the  heirs  of  Mason  and  Gorges,  whom  she 
had  wronged ;  Andros,  whom  she  had  maligned ; 1  and 
Randolph,  whom  she  had  insulted,  wrought  against 
her  with  a  government  whose  sovereign  she  had  of- 
fended and  whose  laws  she  had  defied.  Even  her 
English  friends  had  been  much  alienated.2 

The  controversy  concerning  the  boundary  was  re- 
ferred to  the  two  chief  justices,  who  promptly  decided 
against  the  Company ; 3  and  the  easy  acquiescence  of 
the  General  Court  must  raise  a  doubt  as  to  their 
faith  in  the  soundness  of  their  claims.  And  now 
again  the  fatality  which  seemed  to  pursue  the  the- 
ocracy in  all  its  dealings  with  England  led  it  to  give 
fresh  provocation  to  the  king  by  secretly  buying  the 
title  of  Gorges  for  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.4 

Charles  had  intended  to  settle  Maine  on  the  Duke 
of  Monmouth.  It  was  a  worthless  possession,  whose 
revenue  never  paid  for  its  defence ;  yet  so  stubborn 
was  the  colony  that  it  made  haste  to  anticipate  the 
crown  and  thus  become  "  Lord  Proprietary "  of  a 
burdensome  province  at  the  cost  of  a  slight  which 
was  never  forgiven.  Almost  immediately  the  Privy 

1  He  had  been  accused  of  countenancing  aid  to  Philip  when 
governor  of  New  York.     O'Callaghan  Documents,  iii.  258. 

2  Palfrey,  iii.  278,  279. 

8  See  Opinion  ;  Chalmers's  Annals,  p.  504. 
4  May,  1677.     Chalmers's  Annah,  pp.  396,  397.     See  notes, 
Palfrey,  iii.  312. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  373 

Council  had  begun  to  open  other  matters,  such  as 
coining  and  illicit  trade;  and  the  attorney-general 
drew  up  a  list  of  statutes  which,  in  his  opinion,  were 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  England.  The  agents  protested 
that  they  were  limited  by  their  instructions,  but  were 
sharply  told  that  his  majesty  did  not  think  of  treating 
with  his  own  subjects  as  with  foreigners,  and  it  would 
be  well  to  intimate  the  same  to  their  principals.1  In 
December,  1677,  Stoughton  wrote  in  great  alarm  that 
something  must  be  done  concerning  the  Navigation 
Acts  or  a  breach  would  be  inevitable.2  And  the  Gen- 
eral Court  saw  reason  in  this  emergency  to  increase 
the  tension  by  reviving  the  obnoxious  oath  of  fidelity 
to  the  country,3  —  the  substitute  for  the  oath  of  alle- 
giance, —  and  thus  gave  Randolph  a  new  and  potent 
weapon.  In  the  spring4  the  law  officers  gave  an 
opinion  that  the  misdemeanors  alleged  against  Massa- 
chusetts were  sufficient  to  avoid  her  patent ;  and  the 
Privy  Council,  in  view  of  the  encroachments  and  in- 
juries which  she  had  continually  practised  on  her 
neighbors,  and  her  contempt  of  his  majesty's  com- 
mands, advised  that  a  quo  warranto  should  be  brought 
against  the  charter.  Randolph  was  appointed  col- 
lector at  Boston.5 

Even  Leverett  now  saw  that  some  concessions  must 
be  made,  and  the  General  Court  ordered  the  oath  of 

i  Palfrey,  iii.  309.  2  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  288. 

«  Mass.  Rec.  v.  154. 

4  Palfrey,  iii.  316,  317 ;  Chalmers's  Annals,  p.  439. 
6  1678,  May  31. 


S74  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

allegiance  to  be  taken  ;  nothing  but  perversity  seems 
to  have  caused  the  long  delay.1  The  royal  arms  were 
also  carved  in  the  court-house  ;  and  this  was  all,  for 
the  clergy  were  determined  upon  those  matters  touch- 
ing their  authority.  The  agents  were  told,  "that 
which  is  farr  more  considerable  then  all  these  is  the 
interest  of  the  Lord  Jesus  &  of  his  churches  .  .  . 
wch  ought  to  be  farr  dearer  to  us  than  our  Hues ;  and 
.  .  .  wee  would  not  that  by  any  concessions  of  ours, 
or  of  yors  ...  the  least  stone  should  be  put  out  of 
the  wall."  2 

Both  agents  and  magistrates  were,  nevertheless, 
thoroughly  frightened,  and  being  determined  not  to 
yield,  in  fact,  they  resorted  to  a  policy  of  misrepre- 
sentation, with  the  hope  of  deceiving  the  English 
government.3  Stoughton  and  Bulkely  had  already 
assured  the  Lords  of  Committee  that  the  "  rest  of 
the  inhabitants  were  very  inconsiderable  as  to  num- 
ber, compared  with  those  that  were  acknowledged 
church-members."  4  They  were  in  fact  probably  as 
five  to  one.  The  General  Court  had  been  censured 
for  using  the  word  Commonwealth  in  official  docu- 
ments, as  intimating  independence.  They  hastened  to 
assure  the  crown  that  it  had  not  of  late  been  used, 
and  should  not  be  thereafter;5  yet  in  November,  1675, 

1  Oct.  2,  1678.  Mass.  Rec.  v.  193.  See  Palfrey,  iii.  320, 
note  2.  2  MasSi  ReCf  v>  202. 

8  See  Answers  of  Agents,  Chalmers's  Annals,  p.  450. 

4  Palfrey,  iii.  318. 

6  Mass.  Rec.  v.  198.  And  see,  in  general,  the  official  corre- 
spondence, pp.  197-203. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  375 

commissions  were  thus  issued.1  But  the  breaking  out 
of  the  Popish  plot  began  to  absorb  the  whole  atten- 
tion of  the  government  at  London ;  and  the  agents, 
after  receiving  a  last  rebuke  for  the  presumption  of 
the  colony  in  buying  Maine,  were  at  length  allowed 
to  depart.2 

Nearly  half  a  century  had  elapsed  since  the  emi- 
gration, and  with  the  growth  of  wealth  and  popula- 
tion changes  had  come.  In  March,  John  Leverett, 
who  had  long  been  the  head  of  the  high-church  party, 
died,  and  the  election  of  Simon  Bradstreet  as  his  suc- 
cessor was  a  triumph  for  the  opposition.  Great  as 
the  clerical  influence  still  was,  it  had  lost  much  of  its 
old  despotic  power,  and  the  congregations  were  no 
longer  united  in  support  of  the  policy  of  their  pastors. 
This  policy  was  singularly  desperate.  Casting  aside 
all  but  ecclesiastical  considerations,  the  clergy  consist- 
ently rejected  any  compromise  with  the  crown  which 
threatened  to  touch  the  church.  Almost  from  the 
first  they  had  recognized  that  substantial  independ- 
ence was  necessary  in  order  to  maintain  the  theoc- 
racy. Had  the  colony  been  strong,  they  would  doubt- 
less have  renounced  their  allegiance  ;  but  its  weakness 
was  such  that,  without  the  protection  of  England,  it 
would  have  been  seized  by  France.  Hence  they  re- 
sorted to  expedients  which  could  only  end  in  disaster, 
for  it  was  impossible  for  Massachusetts,  while  part  of 
the  British  Empire,  to  refuse  obedience  at  her  pleas- 
ure to  laws  which  other  colonies  cheerfully  obeyed. 
1  Palfrey,  iii.  322.  a  Nov.  1679. 


376  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

Without  an  ally,  no  resistance  could  be  made  to  Eng- 
land, when  at  length  her  sovereignty  should  be  as- 
serted ;  and  an  armed  occupation  and  military  govern- 
ment were  inevitable  upon  a  breach. 

Though  such  considerations  are  little  apt  to  induce 
a  priesthood  to  surrender  their  temporal  power,  they 
usually  control  commercial  communities.  Accord- 
ingly, Boston  and  the  larger  towns  favored  conces- 
sion, while  the  country  was  the  ministers'  stronghold. 
The  result  of  this  divergence  of  opinion  was  that  the 
moderate  party,  to  which  Bradstreet  and  Dudley  be- 
longed, predominated  in  the  Board  of  Assistants,  while 
the  deputies  remained  immovable.  The  branches  of 
the  legislature  thus  became  opposed ;  no  course  of  ac- 
tion could  be  agreed  on,  and  the  theocracy  drifted  to 
its  destruction. 

The  duplicity  characteristic  of  theological  politics 
grew  daily  more  marked.  In  May,  1679,  a  law  had 
been  passed  forbidding  the  building  of  churches  with- 
out leave  from  the  freemen  of  the  town  or  the  Gen- 
eral Court.1  On  the  llth  of  June,  1680,  three  per- 
sons representing  the  society  of  Baptists  were  sum- 
moned before  the  legislature,  charged  with  the  crime 
of  erecting  a  meeting-house.  They  were  admon- 
ished and  forbidden  to  meet  for  worship  except  with 
the  established  congregations ;  and  their  church  was 
closed.2  That  very  day  an  address  was  voted  to  the 
king,  one  passage  of  which  is  as  follows :  "  Concern- 

i  Mass.  Rec.  v.  213. 
a  Mass.  Rec.  v.  271. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  377 

ing  liberty  of  conscience,  .  .  .  that  after  all,  a  mul- 
titude of  notorious  errors  ...  be  openly  broached, 
.  .  .  amongst  us,  as  by  the  Quakers,  &c.,  wee  pre- 
sume his  majesty  doeth  not  intend ;  and  as  for  other 
Prottestant  dissenters,  that  carry  it  peaceably  &  so- 
berly, wee  trust  there  shallbe  no  cause  of  just  com- 
plaint against  us  on  their  behalf  e."  l 

Meanwhile  Randolph  had  renewed  his  attack.  He 
declared  that  in  spite  of  promises  and  excuses  the 
revenue  laws  were  not  enforced ;  that  his  men  were 
beaten,  and  that  he  hourly  expected  to  be  thrown  into 
prison ;  whereas  in  other  colonies,  he  asserted,  he  was 
treated  with  great  respect.2  There  can  be  no  doubt 
ingenuity  was  used  to  devise  means  of  annoyance,  and 
certainly  the  life  he  was  made  to  lead  was  hard.  In 
March 3  he  sailed  for  home,  and  while  in  London  he 
made  a  series  of  reports  to  the  government  which 
seem  to  have  produced  the  conviction  that  the  mo- 
ment for  action  had  come.  In  December  he  returned, 
commissioned  as  deputy  -  surveyor  and  auditor -gen- 
eral for  all  New  England,  except  New  Hampshire. 
When  Stoughton  and  Bulkely  were  dismissed,  the 
colony  had  been  commanded  to  send  new  agents  with- 
in six  months.  In  September,  1680,  another  royal 
letter  had  been  written,  in  which  the  king  dwelt  upon 
the  misconduct  of  his  subjects,  "when  ...  we  sig- 
nified unto  you  our  gracious  inclination  to  have  all 
past  deeds  forgotten  .  .  .  wee  then  little  thought  that 

1  Mass.  Rec.  v.  287. 

2  June,  1680.     Palfrey,  iii.  340.  •  March  15,  1680-1. 


378  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

those  markes  of  our  grace  and  favour  should  have 
found  no  better  acceptance  amoung  you.  .  .  .  We 
doe  therefore  by  these  our  letters,  strictly  command 
and  require  you,  as  you  tender  your  allegiance  unto 
us,  and  will  deserve  the  effects  of  our  grace  and  favour 
(which  wee  are  enclyned  to  afford  you)  seriously  to 
reflect  upon  our  commands ;  .  .  .  and  particularly  wee 
doe  hereby  command  you  to  send  over,  within  three 
months  after  the  receipt  hereof,  such  .  .  .  persons 
as  you  shall  think  fitt  to  choose,  and  that  you  give 
them  sufficient  instructions  to  attend  the  regulation 
and  settlement  of  that  our  government."  1 

The  General  Court  had  not  thought  fit  to  regard 
these  communications,  and  now  Randolph  came  charged 
with  a  long  and  stern  dispatch,  in  which  agents  were 
demanded  forthwith,  "  in  default  whereof,  we  are 
fully  resolved,  in  Trinity  Term  next  ensuing,  to  direct 
our  attorney-general  to  bring  a  quo  warranto  in  our 
court  of  kings-bench,  whereby  our  charter  granted 
unto  you,  with  all  the  powers  thereof,  may  be  legally 
evicted  and  made  void ;  and  so  we  bid  you  fare- 
wel."2 

Hitherto  the  clerical  party  had  procrastinated, 
buoyed  up  by  the  hope  that  in  the  fierce  struggle  with 
the  commons  Charles  might  be  overthrown ;  but  this 
dream  ended  with  the  dissolution  of  the  Oxford  Par, 
liament,  and  further  inaction  became  impossible.  Jo. 
seph  Dudley  and  John  Richards  were  chosen  agents, 

1  Sept.  30.     Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  261. 

2  Chalmers's  Annals,  p.  449. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  379 

and  provided  with  instructions  bearing  the  peculiar 
tinge  of  ecclesiastical  statesmanship. 

They  were  directed  to  represent  that  appeals  would 
be  intolerable ;  and,  for  their  private  guidance,  the 
legislature  used  these  words :  "  We  therefore  doe  not 
vnderstand  by  the  regulation  of  the  gouernment,  that 
any  alteration  of  the  patent  is  intended ;  yow  shall 
therefore  neither  doe  nor  consent  to  any  thing  that 
may  violate  or  infringe  the  libertjes  &  priuiledges 
granted  to  us  by  his  majtjes  royall  charter,  or  the  gou- 
ernment established  thereby ;  but  if  any  thing  be  pro- 
pounded that  may  tend  therevnto,  yow  shall  say,  yow 
haue  received  no  instruction  in  that  matter."  1  With 
reference  to  the  complaints  made  against  the  colony, 
they  were  to  inform  the  king  "  that  wee  haue  no  law 
prohibiting  any  such  as  are  of  the  perswasion  of  the 
church  of  England,  nor  haue  any  euer  desired  to  wor- 
ship God  accordingly  that  haue  been  denyed."  2 

Such  a  statement  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the 
answer  made  the  commissioners;  and  the  laws  com- 
pelled Episcopalians  to  attend  the  Congregational 
worship,  and  denied  them  the  right  to  build  churches 
of  their  own. 

"  As  for  the  Annabaptists,  they  are  now  subject  to 
no  other  poanal  statutes  then  those  of  the  Congrega- 
tional way."  This  sophistry  is  typical.  The  law 
under  which  the  Baptist  church  was  closed  applied 
in  terms  to  all  inhabitants,  it  is  true  ;  but  it  was  con- 
trived to  suppress  schism,  it  was  used  to  coerce  here- 
i  Mass.  Rec.  v.  349.  «  Mass.  Rec.  v.  347.  March  23. 


380  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

tics,  and  it  was  unrepealed.  Moreover,  it  would  seem 
as  though  the  statute  inflicting  banishment  must  then 
have  still  been  in  force. 

The  assurances  given  in  regard  to  the  reform  of 
the  suffrage  were  precisely  parallel :  — 

"  For  admission  of  ffreemen,  wee  humbly  conceive 
it  is  our  liberty,  by  charter,  to  chuse  whom  wee  will 
admitt  into  our  oune  company,  wch  yet  hath  not  binn 
restrayned  to  Congregational  men,  but  others  haue 
been  admitted,  who  were  also  provided  for  according 
to  his  majtjes  direction."  l 

Such  insincerity  gave  weight  to  Randolph's  words 
when  he  wrote  :  "  My  lord,  I  have  but  one  thing  to 
reminde  your  lordship,  that  nothing  their  agents  can 
say  or  doe  in  England  can  be  any  ground  for  his  maj- 
estie  to  depend  upon."  2 

With  these  documents  and  one  thousand  pounds 
for  bribery,  soon  after  increased  to  three,3  Dudley  and 
Richards  sailed.  Their  powers  were  at  once  rejected 
at  London  as  insufficient,  and  the  decisive  moment 
came.4  The  churchmen  of  Massachusetts  had  to  de- 
termine whether  to  accept  the  secularization  of  their 
government  or  abandon  every  guaranty  of  popular 
liberty.  The  clergy  did  not  hesitate  before  the  mo- 
mentous alternative:  they  exerted  themselves  to  the 
utmost,  and  turned  the  scale  for  the  last  time.6  In 

1  1681-2,  March  23. 

3  Randolph  to  Clarendon.    Hutch.  Coll.,  Prince  Soc.  ed.  ii.  277 
8  Chalmers's  Annals,  p.  461. 

4  Idem,  p.  413.  6  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  303,  note. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  381 

fresh  instructions  the  agents  were  urged  to  do  what 
was  possible  to  avert,  or  at  least  delay,  the  stroke ; 
but  they  were  forbidden  to  consent  to  appeals,  or  to 
alterations  in  the  qualifications  required  for  the  ad- 
mission of  freemen.1  They  had  previously  been  di- 
rected to  pacify  the  king  by  a  present  of  two  thousand 
pounds;  and  this  ill-judged  attempt  at  bribery  had 
covered  them  with  ridicule.2 

Further  negotiation  would  have  been  futile.  Pro- 
ceedings were  begun  at  once,  and  Randolph  was  sent 
to  Boston  to  serve  the  writ  of  quo  warranto ; 3  he  was 
also  charged  with  a  royal  declaration  promising  that, 
even  then,  Were  submission  made,  the  charter  should 
be  restored  with  only  such  changes  as  the  public  wel- 
fare demanded.4  Dudley,  who  was  a  man  of  much 
political  sagacity,  had  returned  and  strongly  urged 
moderation.  The  magistrates  were  not  without  the 
instincts  of  statesmanship :  they  saw  that  a  breach 
with  England  must  destroy  all  safeguards  of  the 
common  freedom,  and  they  voted  an  address  to  the 
crown  accepting  the  proffered  terms.5  But  the  clergy 
strove  against  them :  the  privileges  of  their  order 
were  at  stake ;  they  felt  that  the  loss  of  their  impor- 
tance would  be  "  destructive  to  the  interest  of  religion 
and  of  Christ's  kingdom  in  the  colony," 6  and  they 
roused  their  congregations  to  resist.  The  deputies  did 

1  1683,  March  30.     Mass.  Rec.  v.  390. 

2  Hutch.  Hist.  I  303,  note.  •  1683,  July  20. 
«  Mass.  Rec.  v.  422,  423. 

*  1683,  15  Nov.     Hutch.  Hist.  i.  304  6  Palfrey,  iii.  381. 


382  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

not  represent  the  people,  but  the  church.  They  were 
men  who  had  been  trained  from  infancy  by  the  priests, 
who  had  been  admitted  to  the  communion  and  the 
franchise  on  account  of  their  religious  fervor,  and  who 
had  been  brought  into  public  life  because  the  eccle- 
siastics found  them  pliable  in  their  hands.  The  in- 
fluence which  had  moulded  their  minds  and  guided 
their  actions  controlled  them  still,  and  they  rejected 
the  address.1  Increase  Mather  took  the  lead.  He 
stood  up  at  a  great  meeting  in  the  Old  South,  and 
exhorted  the  people,  "telling  them  how  their  fore- 
fathers did  purchase  it  [the  charter],  and  would 
they  deliver  it  up,  even  as  Ahab  required  Naboth's 
vineyard,  Oh !  their  children  would  be  bound  to  curse 
them."  2 

All  that  could  be  resolved  on  was  to  retain  Robert 
Humphrys  of  the  Middle  Temple  to  interpose  such 
delays  as  the  law  permitted ;  but  no  attempt  was  made 
at  defence  upon  the  merits  of  their  cause,  probably 
because  all  knew  well  that  no  such  defence  was 
possible. 

Meanwhile,  for  technical  reasons,  the  quo  warranto 
had  been  abandoned,  and  a  writ  of  scire  facias  had 
been  issued  out  of  chancery.  On  June  18,  1684,  the 
lord  keeper  ordered  the  defendant  to  appear  and 
plead  on  the  first  day  of  the  next  Michaelmas  Term. 
The  time  allowed  was  too  short  for  an  answer  from 
America,  and  judgment  was  entered  by  default.3  The 

i  Nov.  30.     Palfrey,  iii.  385.  2  Palfrey,  iii.  388,  note  1. 

8  Decree  entered  June  21, 1684  ;  confirmed,  Oct.  23.  Palfrey, 
iii.  393,  note. 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  383 

decree  was  arbitrary,  but  no  effort  was  made  to  obtain 
relief.  The  story,  however,  is  best  told  by  Humphry s 
himself  :  — 

"  It  is  matter  of  astonishment  to  me,  to  think  of 
the  returnes  I  haue  had  from  you  in  the  affaire  of  yor 
charter ;  that  a  prudent  people  should  think  soe  little, 
in  a  thing  of  the  greatest  moment  to  them. 

"  Which  charge  I  humbly  justify  in  the  foil8  par- 
ticulars, and  yet  at  the  same  time  confess  that  all 
you  could  haue  done  would  but  haue  gained  more  time, 
and  spent  more  money,  since  the  breaches  assigned 
ag*  you,  were  as  obvious  as  vnanswerable,  soe  as  all 
the  service  yor  councill  and  friends  could  haue  done 
you  here,  would  haue  onely  served  to  deplore,  not  pre- 
vent the  inevitable  loss. 

"  When  I  sent  you  the  lord  keeper's  order  of  the 
18th  of  June  1684  requireing  yor  appeareing  peremp- 
torily the  first  day  of  Michas  Tearme  then  next,  and 
pleading  to  yssue  .  .  .  you  may  remember  I  sent  with 
it  such  drafts  of  Ires  of  attorney,  to  pass  vnder  your 
comon  scale  as  were  essentially  necessary  to  empower 
and  justify  such  appearance,  and  pleading  for  you 
here,  which  you  could  not  imagine  but  that  you  must 
haue  had  due  time  to  returne  them  in,  noe  law  com- 
pelling impossibilities. 

"  When  the  first  day  of  that  Michas  Tearme  came, 
and  yor  ires  of  attorney  neither  were,  nor  indeed  could 
be  return'd  ...  1  applyd  by  councill  to  the  Court  of 
Chancery  to  enlarge  that  time  urgeing  the  impossibil- 
ity of  hauing  a  returne  from  you  in  the  time  allotted. 


384  THE  SCIRE  FACIAS. 

.  .  .  But  it  is  true  iny  lord  keeper  cutt  the  ground 
from  under  us  which  wee  stood  upon,  by  telling  us  the 
order  of  the  18th  of  June  was  a  surprize  upon  his 
lop  and  that  he  ought  not  to  haue  granted  it,  for 
that  every  corporacon  ought  to  haue  an  attorney  in 
every  court  to  appeare  to  his  mats  suite,  and  that 
London  had  such.  .  .  .  However  certainely  you  ought 
when  my  ires  were  come  to  you,  nunc  pro  tune,  to 
haue  past  the  ires  of  attorney  I  sent  you  under  your 
comon  seale  and  sent  them  me,  and  not  to  haue  stopt 
them  upon  any  private  surmises  from  other  hands 
then  his  you  had  entrusted  in  that  matter  ;  and  the 
rather  for  that  the  judgm*8  of  law,  espetially  those 
taken  by  defaults  for  non  appearances,  are  not  like 
the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  irrevocable,  but 
are  often  on  just  grounds  sett  aside  by  the  court 
here,  and  the  defendants  admitted  to  plead  as  if  noe 
such  judgmts  had  been  entred  vp,  and  the  very  order 
it  selfe  of  the  18th  of  June  guies  you  a  home  instance 
of  it. 

"  And  indeed  I  did  therefore  forbeare  giueing  you 
an  acco*  of  a  further  time  being  denyd,  and  the  entry 
of  judgm*  ag*  you,  expecting  you  would  before  such 
Ire  could  haue  reacht  you  haue  sent  me  the  ires  of 
attorney  vnder  your  corporacon  seale  that  the  court 
might  haue  been  moved  to  admitt  yor  appearance 
and  plea  and  waiued  the  judgm*. 

"  But  instead  of  those  ires  of  attorney  under  your 
seale  you  sent  me  an  address  to  his  late  maty,  I  con- 
fess judiciously  drawne.  But  it  is  my  wonder  in  which 


THE  SCIRE  FACIAS.  385 

of  yor  capacityes  you  could  imagine  it  should  be  pre- 
sented to  his  maty,  for  if  as  a  corporacon,  a  body  poli- 
tique,  it  should  have  been  putt  under  your  corporacon 
scale  if  as  a  private  comunity  it  should  haue  been 
signed  by  your  order.  But  the  paper  has  neither 
private  hand  nor  publique  scale  to  it  and  soe  must 
be  lost.  .  .  . 

"  In  this  condicon  what  could  a  man  doe  for  you, 
nothing  publiquely  for  he  had  noe  warrant  from  you 
to  justify  the  accon."  l 

So  perished  the  Puritan  Commonwealth.  The 
child  of  the  Reformation,  its  life  sprang  from  the 
assertion  of  the  freedom  of  the  mind ;  but  this  great 
and  noble  principle  is  fatal  to  the  temporal  power  of 
a  priesthood,  and  during  the  supremacy  of  the  clergy 
the  government  was  doomed  to  be  both  persecuting 
and  repressive.  Under  no  circumstance  could  the 
theocracy  have  endured :  it  must  have  fallen  by  revolt 
from  within  if  not  by  attack  from  without.  That 
Charles  II.  did  in  fact  cause  its  overthrow  gives  him 
a  claim  to  our  common  gratitude,  for  he  then  struck  a 
decisive  blow  for  the  emancipation  of  Massachusetts ; 
and  thus  his  successor  was  enabled  to  open  before  her 
that  splendid  career  of  democratic  constitutional  lib- 
erty which  was  destined  to  become  the  basis  of  the 
jurisprudence  of  the  American  Union. 
1  Mass.  Archives,  cvi.  343. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE   WITCHCRAFT. 

THE  history  of  the  years  between  the  dissolution  of 
the  Company  of  Massachusetts  Bay  and  the  reorgani- 
zation of  the  country  by  William  III.  in  1692  has 
little  bearing  upon  the  development  of  the  people ; 
for  the  presidency  of  Dudley  and  the  administration 
of  Andros  were  followed  by  a  revolution  that  paralyzed 
all  movement.  During  the  latter  portion  of  this  in- 
terval the  colony  was  represented  at  London  by  three 
agents,  of  whom  Increase  Mather  was  the  most  influ- 
ential, who  used  every  effort  to  obtain  the  reestab- 
lishment  of  the  old  government ;  they  met,  however, 
with  insuperable  obstacles.  Quietly  to  resume  was 
impossible ;  for  the  obstinacy  of  the  clergy,  in  refus- 
ing all  compromise  with  Charles  II.,  had  caused  the 
patent  to  be  cancelled ;  and  thus  a  new  grant  had  be- 
come necessary.  Nor  was  this  all,  for  the  attorney 
and  solicitor  general,  with  whom  the  two  chief  justices 
concurred,1  gave  it  as  their  opinion  that,  supposing  no 
decree  had  been  rendered,  and  the  same  powers  were 
exercised  as  before,  a  writ  of  scire  facias  would  cer- 
tainly be  issued,  upon  which  a  similar  judgment  would 
inevitably  be  entered.  These  considerations,  however, 
1  Parentator,  p.  139. 


THE    WITCHCRAFT.  387 

became  immaterial,  as  the  king  was  a  statesman,  and 
had  already  decided  upon  his  policy.  His  views  had 
little  in  common  with  those  held  by  the  Massachusetts 
ecclesiastics,  and  when  the  Rev.  Mr.  Mather  first  read 
the  instrument  in  which  they  had  been  embodied,  he 
declared  he  "  would  sooner  part  with  his  life  than  con- 
sent unto  such  minutes."  l  He  grew  calmer,  however, 
when  told  that  his  "consent  was  not  expected  nor  de- 
sired ; "  and  with  that  energy  and  decision  for  which 
he  was  remarkable,  at  once  secured  the  patronage. 

The  constitutional  aspect  of  the  Provincial  Charter 
is  profoundly  interesting,  and  it  will  be  considered  in 
its  legal  bearings  hereafter.  Its  political  tendencies, 
however,  first  demand  attention,  for  it  wrought  a  com- 
plete social  revolution,  since  it  overthrew  the  temporal 
power  of  the  church.  Massachusetts,  Maine,  and 
Plymouth  were  consolidated,  and  within  them  toler- 
ation was  established,  except  in  regard  to  Papists ; 
the  religious  qualification  was  swept  away,  and  in 
its  stead  freeholders  of  forty  shillings  per  annum,  or 
owners  of  personal  property  to  the  value  of  forty 
pounds  sterling,  were  admitted  to  the  franchise ;  the 
towns  continued  to  elect  the  house  of  representatives, 
and  the  whole  Assembly  chose  the  council,  subject  to 
the  approval  of  the  executive.2  The  governor,  lieuten- 
ant-governor, and  secretary  were  appointed  by  the 
crown ;  the  governor  had  a  veto,  and  the  king  re- 
served the  right  to  disallow  legislation  within  three 
years  of  the  date  of  its  enactment.  Thus  the  theoc- 
1  Parentator,  p.  134.  2  Hutch.  Hist.  ii.  15,  16. 


388  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

racy  fell  at  a  single  blow  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  remark 
that  thenceforward  prosecutions  for  sedition  became 
unknown  among  the  people  of  the  Province  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay.  Yet,  though  the  clerical  oligarchy  was 
no  longer  absolute,  the  ministers  still  exerted  a  pro- 
digious influence  upon  opinion.  Not  only  did  they 
speak  with  all  the  authority  inherited  with  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  past ;  not  only  had  they  or  their  prede- 
cessors trained  the  vast  majority  of.  the  people  from 
their  cradles  to  reverence  them  more  than  anything 
on  earth,  but  their  compact  organization  was  as  yet 
unimpaired,  and  at  its  head  stood  the  two  Mathers, 
the  pastors  of  the  Old  North  Church.  Thus  vener- 
ated and  thus  led,  the  elders  were  still  able  to  appeal 
to  the  popular  superstition  and  fanaticism  with  terrible 
effect. 

Widely  differing  judgments  have  been  formed  of 
these  two  celebrated  divines ;  the  ecclesiastical  view  is 
perhaps  well  summed  up  by  the  Rev.  John  Eliot,  who 
thus  describes  the  President  of  Harvard :  "  He  was 
the  father  of  the  New  England  clergy,  and  his  name 
and  character  were  held  in  veneration,  not  only  by 
those,  who  knew  him,  but  by  succeeding  generations." l 
All  must  admit  his  ability  and  learning,  while  in  sanc- 
timoniousness of  deportment  he  was  unrivalled.  His 
son  Cotton  says  he  had  such  a  "  gravity  as  made  all 
sorts  of  persons,  wherever  he  came,  to  be  struck  with 
a  sensible  awe  of  his  presence,  .  .  .  yea,  if  he  laughed 
on  them,  they  believed  it  not."  "His  very  counte- 
1  Biographical  Dictionary,  p.  312. 


THE    WITCHCRAFT.  389 

nance  carried  the  force  of  a  sermon  with  it."  1  He 
kept  a  strict  account  of  his  mental  condition,  and  al- 
ways was  pleased  when  able  to  enter  in  his  diary  at 
the  end  of  the  day,  "heart  serious."  He  was  unctuous 
in  his  preaching,  and  wept  much  in  the  pulpit;  he 
often  mentions  being  "  quickened  at  the  Lord's  table 
[during  which]  tears  gushed  from  me  before  the 
Lord,"  2  but  of  his  self-sacrifice,  his  mercy,  and  his 
truth,  his  own  acts  and  words  are  the  best  evidence 
that  remain. 

When  the  new  government  was  about  to  be  put  in 
operation,  an  extraordinary  amount  of  patronage  lay 
at  the  disposal  of  the  crown ;  for,  beside  the  regular 
executive  officers,  the  entire  council  had  to  be  named, 
since  they  could  not  be  elected  until  a  legislature  had 
been  organized  to  choose  them.  Increase  Mather, 
Elisha  Cooke,  and  Thomas  Oakes  were  acting  as 
agents,  and  all  had  been  bitterly  opposed  to  the  new 
charter;  but  of  the  three,  the  English  ministers 
thought  Mather  the  most  important  to  secure.  And 
now  an  odd  coincidence  happened  in  the  life  of  this 
singular  man.  He  suddenly  one  day  announced  him-  ^ 
self  convinced  that  the  king's  project  was  not  so  in- 
tolerable as  to  be  unworthy  of  support ;  and  then  it 
very  shortly  transpired  that  he  had  been  given  all  the 
spoil  before  the  patent  had  passed  the  seals.8  The 
proximity  of  these  events  is  interesting  as  bearing  on 
the  methods  of  ecclesiastical  statesmen,  and  it  is  also 

1  Parentator,  p.  40.  2  Parentator,  p.  48. 

8  Palfrey,  iv.  85. 


390  THE   WITCHCRAFT. 

t  instructive  to  observe  how  thorough  a  master  of  the 
situation  this  eminent  divine  proved  himself  to  be. 
He  not  only  appointed  all  his  favorite  henchmen  to 
office,  but  he  rigidly  excluded  his  colleagues  at  Lon- 
don, who  had  continued  their  opposition,  and  every 
one  else  who  had  any  disposition  to  be  independent. 
His  creature,  Sir  William  Phips,  was  made  governor; 
William  Stoughton,  who  was  bred  for  the  church, 
and  whose  savage  bigotry  endeared  him  to  the  clergy, 
was  lieutenant-governor;  and  the  council  was  so 
packed  that  his  excellent  son  broke  into  a  shout  of 
triumph  when  he  heard  the  news  :  — 

"  The  time  has  come !  the  set  time  has  come !  I 
am  now  to  receive  an  answer  of  so  many  prayers.  All 
the  councellors  of  the  province  are  of  my  own  father's 
nomination  ;  and  my  father-in-law,  with  several  related 
unto  me,  and  several  brethren  of  my  own  church  are 
among  them.  The  governor  of  the  province  is  not 
my  enemy,  but  one  whom  I  baptized  ;  namely,  Sir 
William  Phips,  one  of  my  own  flock,  and  one  of  my 
dearest  friends." 1  Such  was  the  government  the 
theocracy  left  the  country  as  its  legacy  when  its  own 
power  had  passed  away,  and  dearly  did  Massachu- 
setts rue  that  fatal  gift  in  her  paroxysms  of  agony 
and  blood. 

At  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  belief  in 
witchcraft  was  widespread,  and  among  the  more  igno- 
rant well-nigh  universal.     The  superstition  was,  more- 
over, fostered  by  the  clergy,  who,  in  adopting  this 
1  Cotton  Mather's  Diary  •  Quincy's  History  of  Harvard,  i.  60. 


THE   WITCHCRAFT.  391 

policy,  were  undoubtedly  actuated  by  mixed  motives. 
Their  credulity  probably  made  them  for  the  most  part 
sincere  in  the  unbounded  confidence  they  professed  in 
the  possibility  of  compacts  between  the  devil  and  man- 
kind ;  but,  nevertheless,  there  is  abundant  evidence  in 
their  writings  of  their  having  been  keenly  alive  to  the 
fact  that  men  horror-stricken  at  the  sight  of  the  de- 
struction of  their  wives  and  children  by  magic  would 
grovel  in  the  submission  of  abject  terror  at  the  feet  of 
the  priest  who  promised  to  deliver  them. 

The  elders  began  the  agitation  by  sending  out  a 
paper  of  proposals  for  collecting  stories  of  appari- 
tions and  witchcrafts,  and  in  obedience  to  their  wish 
Increase  Mather  published  his  "  Illustrious  Provi- 
dences "  in  1683-4.  Two  chapters  of  this  book  were 
devoted  to  sorceries,  and  the  reverend  author  took 
occasion  to  intimate  his  opinion  that  those  who  might 
doubt  the  truth  of  his  relations  were  probably  them- 
selves either  heretics  or  wizards.  This  movement  of 
the  clergy  seems  to  have  highly  inflamed  the  popular 
imagination,1  yet  no  immediate  disaster  followed ;  and 
the  nervous  exaltation  did  not  become  deadly  until 
1688.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year  four  children  of  a 
Boston  mason  named  Goodwin  began  to  mimic  the 
symptoms  they  had  so  often  heard  described  ;  the  fa- 
ther, who  was  a  pious  man,  called  in  the  ministers  of 
Boston  and  Charlestown,  who  fasted  and  prayed,  and 
succeeded  in  delivering  the  youngest,  who  was  five. 
Meanwhile,  one  of  the  daughters  had  "cried  out 
1  Hutch.  Hist.  ii.  24. 


392  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

upon  "  an  unfortunate  Irish  washerwoman,  with  whom 
she  had  quarrelled.  Cotton  Mather  was  now  in  his 
element.  He  took  the  eldest  girl  home  with  him  and 
tried  a  great  number  of  interesting  experiments  as  to 
the  relative  power  of  Satan  and  the  Lord ;  among 
others  he  gravely  relates  how  when  the  sufferer  was 
tormented  elsewhere  he  would  carry  her  struggling 
to  his  own  study,  into  which  entering,  she  stood  im- 
mediately upon  her  feet,  and  cried  out,  "They  are 

gone  !  They  are  gone  !  They  say  they  cannot 

God  won't  let  'em  come  here."  l 

It  is  not  credible  that  an  educated  and  a  sane  man 
could  ever  have  honestly  believed  in  the  absurd  stuff 
which  he  produced  as  evidence  of  the  supernatural ; 
his  description  of  the  impudence  of  the  children  is 
amazing. 

"  They  were  divers  times  very  near  burning  or 
drowning  of  themselves,  but  ...  by  their  own  pitti- 
ful  and  seasonable  cries  for  help  still  procured  their 
deliverance :  which  made  me  consider,  whether  the 
little  ones  had  not  their  angels,  in  the  plain  sense  of 
our  Saviour's  intimation.  .  .  .  And  sometimes,  tho' 
but  seldome,  they  were  kept  from  eating  their  meals, 
by  having  their  teeth  sett  when  they  carried  any  thing 
to  their  mouthes."  2 

And  it  was  upon  such  evidence  that  the  washer, 
woman  was  hanged.  There  is  an  instant  in  the  bat- 
tle as  the  ranks  are  wavering,  when  the  calmness  of 

1  Memorable  Providences,  pp.  27,  28. 

2  Idem,  pp.  15-17. 


THE    WITCHCRAFT.  393 

the  officers  will  avert  the  rout ;  and  as  to  have  held 
their  soldiers  then  is  deemed  their  highest  honor,  so 
to  have  been  found  wanting  is  their  indelible  disgrace  ; 
the  people  stood  poised  upon  the  panic's  brink,  their 
pastors  lashed  them  in. 

Cotton  Mather  forthwith  published  a  terrific  ac- 
count of  the  ghostly  crisis,  mixed  with  denunciations 
of  the  Sadducee  or  Atheist  who  disbelieved ;  and  to  the 
book  was  added  a  preface,  written  by  the  four  other 
clergymen  who  had  assisted  with  their  prayers,  the 
character  of  which  may  be  judged  by  a  single  extract. 
"  The  following  account  will  afford  to  him  that  shall 
read  with  observation,  a  further  clear  confirmation, 
that,  there  is  both  a  God,  and  a  devil,  and  witchcraft : 
that  there  is  no  outward  affliction,  but  what  God  may, 
(and  sometimes  doth)  permit  Satan  to  trouble  his  peo- 
ple withal."  l  Not  content  with  this,  Mather  goaded 
his  congregation  into  frenzy  from  the  pulpit.  "  Con- 
sider also,  the  misery  of  them  whom  witchcraft  may  be 
let  loose  upon.  What  is  it  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
devils?  .  .  .  O  what  a  direful  thing  is  it,  to  be  prickt 
with  pins,  and  stab'd  with  knives  all  over,  and  to  be 
fill'd  all  over  with  broken  bones  ?  'T  is  impossible  to 
reckon  up  the  varieties  of  miseries  which  those  mon- 
sters inflict  where  they  can  have  a  blow.  No  less 
than  death,  and  that  a  languishing  and  a  terrible 
death  will  satisfie  the  rage  of  those  formidable  drag- 
ons." 2  The  pest  was  sure  to  spread  in  a  credulous 

1  Memorable  Providences,  Preface. 

2  Discourse  on  Witchcraft,  p.  19. 


394  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

community,  fed  by  their  natural  leaders  with  this 
morbid  poison,  and  it  next  broke  out  in  Salem  village 
in  February,  1691-2.  A  number  of  girls  had  become 
intensely  excited  by  the  stories  they  had  heard,  and 
two  of  them,  who  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  clergy- 
man, were  seized  with  the  usual  symptoms.  Of  Mr. 
Parris  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  began  the  investi- 
gation with  a  frightful  relish.  Other  ministers  were 
called  in,  and  prayer-meetings  lasting  all  day  were 
held,  with  the  result  of  throwing  the  patients  into  con- 
vulsions.1 Then  the  name  of  the  witch  was  asked, 
and  the  girls  were  importuned  to  make  her  known. 
They  refused  at  first,  but  soon  the  pressure  became 
too  strong,  and  the  accusations  began.  Among  the 
earliest  to  be  arrested  and  examined  was  Goodwife 
Cory.  Mr.  Noyes,  teacher  of  Salem,  began  with 
prayer,  and  when  she  was  brought  in  the  sufferers 
"did  vehemently  accuse  her  of  afflicting  them,  by 
biting,  pinching,  strangling,  &c.,  and  they  said,  they 
did  in  their  fits  see  her  likeness  coming  to  them,  and 
bringing  a  book  for  them  to  sign."2  By  April  the 
number  of  informers  and  of  the  suspected  had  greatly 
increased  and  the  prisons  began  to  fill.  Mr.  Parris 
behaved  like  a  madman ;  not  only  did  he  preach  in- 
flammatory sermons,  but  he  conducted  the  examina- 
tions, and  his  questions  were  such  that  the  evidence 
was  in  truth  nothing  but  what  he  put  in  the  mouths 
of  the  witnesses ;  yet  he  seems  to  have  been  guilty  of 

1  Calef's  More  Wonders,  p.  90  et  seq. 

2  Idem,  p.  92. 


THE   WITCHCRAFT.  395 

a  darker  crime,  for  there  is  reason  to  suppose  he  gar- 
bled the  testimony  it  was  his  sacred  duty  to  truly 
record.1  And  in  all  this  he  appears  to  have  had  the 
approval  and  the  aid  of  Mr.  Noyes.  Such  was  the 
crisis  when  Sir  William  Phips  landed  on  the  14th 
of  May,  1692;  he  was  the  Mathers'  tool,  and  the  re- 
sult could  have  been  foretold.  Uneducated  and  cred- 
ulous, he  was  as  clay  in  the  hands  of  his  creators; 
and  his  first  executive  act  was  to  cause  the  mis- 
erable prisoners  to  be  fettered.  Jonathan  Gary  has 
described  what  befell  his  wife:  "Next  morning  the 
jaylor  put  irons  on  her  legs  (having  received  such  a 
command)  the  weight  of  them  was  about  eight  pounds ; 
these  irons  and  her  other  afflictions,  soon  brought  her 
into  convulsion  fits,  so  that  I  thought  she  would  have 
died  that  night."  2 

At  the  beginning  of  June  the  governor,  by  an  arbi- 
trary act,  created  a  court  to  try  the  witches,  and  at 
its  head  put  William  Stoughton.  Even  now  it  is  im- 
possible to  read  the  proceedings  of  this  sanguinary 
tribunal  without  a  shudder,  and  it  has  left  a  stain 
upon  the  judiciary  of  Massachusetts  that  can  never  be 
effaced. 

Two  weeks  later  the  opinion  of  the  elders  was 
asked,  as  it  had  been  of  old,  and  they  recommended 
the  "  speedy  and  vigorous  prosecutions  of  such  as 
have  rendered  themselves  obnoxious,"  3  nor  did  their 

1  Grounds  of  Complaint  against  Parris,  §  6  ;    More  Wonders, 
p.  96  (».  e.  56). 

2  More  Wonders,  p.  97.  8  Hutch.  Hist.  ii.  63. 


£96  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

advice  fall  upon  unwilling  ears.  Stoughton  was  al- 
ready at  work,  and  certain  death  awaited  all  who 
were  dragged  before  that  cruel  and  bloodthirsty  bigot ; 
even  when  the  jury  acquitted,  the  court  refused  to  re- 
ceive the  verdict.  The  accounts  given  of  the  legal 
proceedings  seem  monstrous.  The  preliminary  exam- 
inations were  conducted  amid  such  "  hideous  clamours 
and  screechings,"  that  frequently  the  voice  of  the  de- 
fendant was  drowned,  and  if  a  defence  was  attempted 
at  a  trial,  the  victim  was  browbeaten  and  mocked  by 
the  bench.1 

The  ghastly  climax  was  reached  in  the  case  of 
George  Burroughs,  who  had  been  the  clergyman  at 
Wells.  At  his  trial  the  evidence  could  hardly  be 
heard  by  reason  of  the  fits  of  the  sufferers.  "  The 
chief  judge  asked  the  prisoner,  who  he  thought  hin- 
dered these  witnesses  from  giving  their  testimonies? 
and  he  answered,  he  supposed  it  was  the  devil.  That 
honourable  person  then  replied,  How  comes  the  devil 
so  loath  to  have  any  testimony  born  against  you? 
Which  cast  him  into  very  great  confusion."  Pres- 
ently the  informers  saw  the  ghosts  of  his  two  dead 
wives,  whom  they  charged  him  with  having  murdered, 
stand  before  him  "  crying  for  vengeance ;  "  yet  though 
much  appalled,  he  steadily  denied  that  they  were 
there.  He  also  roused  his  judges'  ire  by  asserting 
that  "  there  neither  are,  nor  ever  were,  witches."  2 

He  and  those  to  die  with  him  were  carried  through 

1  More  Wonders,  p.  102. 

2  Idem.  pp.  115-119. 


THE   WITCHCRAFT.  397 

the  streets  of  Salem  in  a  cart.  As  he  climbed  the 
ladder  he  called  God  to  witness  he  was  innocent,  and 
his  words  were  so  pathetic  that  the  people  sobbed 
aloud,  and  it  seemed  as  though  he  might  be  rescued 
even  as  he  stood  beneath  the  tree.  Then  when  at  last 
he  swung  above  them,  Cotton  Mather  rode  among  the 
throng  and  told  them  of  his  guilt,  and  how  the  fiend 
could  come  to  them  as  an  angel  of  light,  and  so  tho 
work  went  on.  They  cut  him  down  and  dragged  him 
by  his  halter  to  a  shallow  hole  among  the  rocks,  and 
threw  him  in,  and  there  they  lay  together  with  the 
rigid  hand  of  the  wizard  Burroughs  still  pointing  up- 
ward through  his  thin  shroud  of  earth.1 

By  October  it  seemed  as  though  the  bonds  of  society 
were  dissolving;  nineteen  persons  had  been  hanged, 
one  had  been  pressed  to  death,  and  eight  lay  con- 
demned; a  number  had  fled,  but  their  property  had 
been  seized  and  they  were  beggars ;  the  prisons  were 
choked,  while  more  than  two  hundred  were  accused 
and  in  momentary  fear  of  arrest ; 2  even  two  dogs  had 
been  killed.  The  plague  propagated  itself;  for  the 
only  hope  for  those  cried  out  upon  was  to  confess  their 
guilt  and  turn  informers.  Thus  no  one  was  safe. 
Mr.  Willard,  pastor  of  the  Old  South,  who  began  to 
falter,  was  threatened ;  the  wife  of  Mr.  Hale,  pastor 
of  Beverly,  who  had  been  one  of  the  great  leaders  of 
the  prosecutions,  was  denounced;  Lady  Phips  her- 
self was  named.  But  the  race  who  peopled  New  Eng- 

1  More  Wonders,  pp.  103,  104. 

2  Idem,  p.  110. 


398  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

land  had  a  mental  vigor  which  even  the  theocracy 
could  not  subdue,  and  Massachusetts  had  among  her 
sons  liberal  and  enlightened  men,  whose  voice  was 
heard,  even  in  the  madness  of  the  terror.  Of  these, 
the  two  Brattles,  Robert  Calef,  and  John  Leverett 
were  the  foremost ;  and  they  served  their  mother  well, 
though  the  debt  of  gratitude  and  honor  which  she 
owes  them  she  has  never  yet  repaid. 

On  the  8th,  four  days  before  the  meeting  of  the 
legislature,  and  probably  at  the  first  moment  it  could 
be  done  with  safety,  Thomas  Brattle  wrote  an  admir- 
able letter,1  in  which  he  exposed  the  folly  and  wicked- 
ness of  the  delusion  with  all  the  energy  the  temper  of 
the  time  would  bear ;  had  he  miscalculated,  his  error 
of  judgment  would  probably  have  cost  him  his  life. 
At  the  meeting  of  the  General  Court  the  illegal  and 
blood-stained  commission  came  to  an  end,  and  as  the 
reaction  slowly  and  surely  set  in,  Phips  began  to  feel 
alarm  lest  he  should  he  called  to  account  in  England ; 
accordingly,  he  tried  to  throw  the  blame  on  Stough- 
ton :  "  When  I  returned,  I  found  people  much  dissat- 
isfied at  the  proceedings  of  the  court;  .  .  .  The 
deputy  -  governor,  [Stoughton]  notwithstanding,  per- 
sisted vigorously  in  the  same  method.  .  .  .  When  I 
put  an  end  to  the  court,  there  was  at  least  fifty  per- 
sons in  prison,  in  great  misery  by  reason  of  the  ex- 
treme cold  and  their  poverty.  ...  I  permitted  a 
special  superior  court  to  be  held  at  Salem,  ...  on 
the  third  day  of  January,  the  lieutenant-governor  being 
1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll  first  series,  v.  61. 


THE    WITCHCRAFT.  399 

ehief  judge.  .  .  .  All .  .  .  were  cleared,  saving  three. 
.  .  .  The  deputy-governor  signed  a  warrant  for  their 
speedy  execution,  and  also  of  five  others  who  were 
condemned  at  the  former  court.  .  .  .  But  ...  I  sent 
a  reprieve ;  .  .  .  the  lieutenant-governor  upon  this 
occasion  was  enraged  and  filled  with  passionate  anger, 
and  refused  to  sit  upon  the  bench  at  a  superior  court, 
at  that  time  held  at  Charlestown ;  and,  indeed,  hath 
from  the  beginning  hurried  on  these  matters  with 
great  precipitancy,  and  by  his  warrant  hath  caused 
the  estates,  goods,  and  chattels  of  the  executed  to  be 
seized  and  disposed  of  without  my  knowledge  or  con- 
sent." 1  Some  months  earlier,  also,  just  before  the 
meeting  of  the  legislature,  he  had  called  on  Cotton 
Mather  to  defend  him  against  the  condemnation  he 
had  even  then  begun  to  feel,  and  the  elder  had  re- 
sponded with  a  volume  which  remains  as  a  memo- 
rial of  him  and  his  compeers.2  He  gave  thanks  for 
the  blood  that  had  already  flowed,  and  prayed  to  God 
for  more.  "  They  were  some  of  the  gracious  words, 
inserted  in  the  advice,  which  many  of  the  neighbouring 
ministers,  did  this  summer  humbly  lay  before  our  hon- 
ourable judges :  *  We  cannot  but  with  all  thankful- 
ness,  acknowledge  the  success  which  the  merciful  God 
has  given  unto  the  sedulous  and  assiduous  endeav- 
ours of  our  honourable  rulers,  to  detect  the  abom- 
inable witchcrafts  which  have  been  committed  in  the 

1  Phips  to  the  Earl  of  Nottingham,  Feb.  21,  1693.     Palfrey, 
iv.  112,  note  2. 

2  Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World. 


400  THE   WITCHCRAFT. 

country ;  humbly  praying  that  the  discovery  of  those 
mysterious  and  mischievous  wickednesses,  may  be  per- 
fected.' If  in  the  midst  of  the  many  dissatisfactions 
among  us,  the  publication  of  these  trials,  may  promote 
such  a  pious  thankfulness  unto  God,  for  justice  being 
so  far,  executed  among  us,  I  shall  rejoyce  that  God  is 
glorified ;  and  pray  that  no  wrong  steps  of  ours  may 
ever  sully  any  of  his  glorious  works."  1 

"  These  witches  .  .  .  have  met  in  hellish  randez- 
vouszes.  ...  In  these  hellish  meetings,  these  mon- 
sters have  associated  themselves  to  do  no  less  a  thing 
than  to  destroy  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
in  these  parts  of  the  world.  .  .  .  We  are  truly  come 
into  a  day,  which  by  being  well  managed  might  be 
very  glorious,  for  the  exterminating  of  those,  accursed 
things,  .  .  .  But  if  we  make  this  day  quarrelsome,  .  .  . 
Alas,  O  Lord,  my  flesh  trembles  for  fear  of  thee,  and 
I  am  afraid  of  thy  judgments."  2 

While  reading  such  words  the  streets  of  Salem  rise 
before  the  eyes,  with  the  cart  dragging  Martha  Cory 
to  the  gallows  while  she  protests  her  innocence,  and 
there,  at  her  journey's  end,  at  the  gibbet's  foot,  stands 
the  Rev.  Nicholas  Noyes,  pointing  to  the  dangling 
corpses,  and  saying :  "  What  a  sad  thing  it  is  to  see 
eight  firebrands  of  hell  hanging  there."  3 

The  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  is  sufficiently  ob- 
vious. Although  at  a  moment  when  the  panic  had 

1  Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World,  pp.  82,  83. 

8  Idem,  pp.  49-60. 

8  More  Wonders,  p.  108. 


THE    WITCHCRAFT.  401 

got  beyond  control,  even  the  most  ultra  of  the  clergy 
had  been  forced  by  their  own  danger  to  counsel  mod- 
eration, the  conservatives  were  by  no  means  ready  to 
abandon  their  potent  allies  from  the  lower  world; 
the  power  they  gave  was  too  alluring.  "  'T  is  a  strange 
passage  recorded  by  Mr.  Clark,  in  the  life  of  his  fa- 
ther, That  the  people  of  his  parish  refusing  to  be  re- 
claimed from  their  Sabbath  breaking,  by  all  the  zeal- 
ous testimonies  which  that  good  man  bore  against  it ; 
at  last  [one  night]  .  .  .  there  was  heard  a  great  noise, 
with  rattling  of  chains,  up  and  down  the  town,  and  an 
horrid  scent  of  brimstone.  .  .  .  Upon  which  the  guilty 
consciences  of  the  wretches,  told  them,  the  devil  was 
come  to  fetch  them  away;  and  it  so  terrify'd  them, 
that  an  eminent  reformation  follow'd  the  sermons 
which  that  man  of  God  preached  thereupon."  1  They 
therefore  saw  the  constant  acquittals,  the  abandon- 
ment of  prosecutions,  and  the  growth  of  incredu- 
lity with  regret.  The  next  year  Cotton  Mather  laid 
bare  the  workings  of  their  minds  with  cynical  frank- 
ness. "  The  devils  have  with  most  horrendous  opera- 
tions broke  in  upon  our  neighbourhood,  and  God  has 
at  such  a  rate  overruled  all  the  fury  and  malice  of 
those  devils,  that  .  .  .  the  souls  of  many,  especially 
of  the  rising  generation,  have  been  thereby  waken'd 
unto  some  acquaintance  with  religion  ;  our  young  peo- 
ple who  belonged  unto  the  praying  meetings,  of  both 
sexes,  apart  would  ordinarily  spend  whole  nights  by 
the  whole  weeks  together  in  prayers  and  psalms  upon 
1  Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World,  p.  65. 


402  THE    WITCHCRAFT, 

these  occasions ;  .  .  .  and  some  scores  of  other  young 
people,  who  were  strangers  to  real  piety,  were  now 
struck  with  the  lively  demonstrations  of  hell  .  .  .  be- 
fore their  eyes.  ...  In  the  whole  —  the  devil  got  just 
nothing,  but  God  got  praises,  Christ  got  subjects,  the 
Holy  Spirit  got  temples,  the  church  got  addition,  and 
the  souls  of  men  got  everlasting  benefits."  1 

Mather  prided  himself  on  what  he  had  done.  "  I 
am  not  so  vain  as  to  say  that  any  wisdom  or  virtue  of 
mine  did  contribute  unto  this  good  order  of  things ; 
but  I  am  so  just  as  to  say,  I  did  not  hinder  this 
good."2  Men  with  such  beliefs,  and  lured  onward 
by  such  temptations,  were  incapable  of  letting  the  tre- 
mendous power  superstition  gave  them  slip  from  their 
grasp  without  an  effort  on  their  own  behalf ;  and  ac- 
cordingly it  was  not  long  before  the  Mathers  were 
once  more  at  work.  On  the  10th  of  September, 
1693,  or  about  nine  months  after  the  last  spasms  at 
Salem,  and  when  the  belief  in  enchantments  was  fast 
falling  into  disrepute,  a  girl  named  Margaret  Rule 
was  taken  with  the  accustomed  symptoms  in  Boston. 
Forthwith  these  two  godly  divines  repaired  to  her 
bedside,  and  this  is  what  took  place :  — 

Then  Mr.  M father  and  son  came  up,  and  oth- 
ers with  them,  in  the  whole  were  about  thirty  or  forty 
persons,  they  being  sat,  the  father  on  a  stool,  and  the 
son  upon  the  bedside  by  her,  the  son  began  to  ques- 
tion  her : 

1  More  Wonders,  p.  12.  2  Idem,  p.  12. 


THE    WITCHCRAFT.  403 

Margaret  Rule,  how  do  you  do  ?  Then  a  pause 
without  any  answer. 

Question.  What.  Do  there  a  great  many  witches 
sit  upon  you  ?  Answer.  Yes. 

Question.  Do  you  not  know  that  there  is  a  hard 
master  ? 

Then  she  was  in  a  fit.  He  laid  his  hand  upon 
her  face  and  nose,  but,  as  he  said,  without  perceiving 
breath;  then  he  brush'd  her  on  the  face  with  his 
glove,  and  rubb'd  her  stomach  (her  breast  not  being 
covered  with  the  bed  clothes)  and  bid  others  do  so 
too,  and  said  it  eased  her,  then  she  revived. 

Q.  Don't  you  know  there  is  a  hard  master  ?  A. 
Yes. 

Reply.  Don't  serve  that  hard  master,  you  know 
who. 

Q.  Do  you  believe  ?  Then  again  she  was  in  a  fit, 
and  he  again  rub'd  her  breast  &c.  .  .  .  He  wrought 
his  fingers  before  her  eyes  and  asked  her  if  she  saw 
the  witches?  A.  No.  .  .  . 

Q.  Who  is  it  that  afflicts  you  ?  -4.1  know  not, 
there  is  a  great  many  of  them.  .  .  . 

Q.  You  have  seen  the  black  man,  hant  you  ?  A. 
No. 

Reply.  I  hope  you  never  shall. 

Q.  You  have  had  a  book  offered  you,  hant  you  ? 
A.  No. 

Q.  The  brushing  of  you  gives  you  ease,  don't  it? 
A.  Yes.  She  turn'd  herself e,  and  a  little  groan'd. 

Q.   Now  the  witches  scratch  you,  and  pinch  you, 


404  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

and  bite  you,  don't  they  ?  A.  Yes.  Then  he  put  his 
hand  upon  her  breast  and  belly,  viz.  on  the  clothes 
over  her,  and  felt  a  living  thing,  as  he  said;  which 
moved  the  father  also  to  feel,  and  some  others. 

Q.  Don't  you  feel  the  live  thing  in  the  bed? 
A.  No.  ... 

Q.  Shall  we  go  to  pray  .  .  .  spelling  the  word. 
A.  Yes.  The  father  went  to  prayer  for  perhaps  half 
an  hour,  chiefly  against  the  power  of  the  devil  and 
witchcraft,  and  that  God  would  bring  out  the  afflict- 
ers.  .  .  .  After  prayer  he  [the  son]  proceeded. 

Q.  You  did  not  hear  when  we  were  at  prayer  did 
you?  A.  Yes. 

Q.  You  don't  hear  always  ?  you  don't  hear  some- 
times past  a  word  or  two,  do  you?  A.  No.  Then 
turning  him  about  said,  this  is  just  another  Mercy 
Short.  .  .  . 

Q.  What  does  she  eat  or  drink?  A.  Not  eat  at 
all ;  but  drink  rum.1 

To  sanctify  to  the  godly  the  ravings  of  this  drunken 
and  abandoned  wench  was  a  solemn  joy  to  the  heart 
of  this  servant  of  Christ,  who  gave  his  life  to  "  un- 
wearied cares  and  pains,  to  rescue  the  miserable  from 
the  lions  and  bears  of  hell,"  2  therefore  he  prepared 
another  tract.  But  his  hour  was  well-nigh  come. 
Though  it  was  impossible  that  retribution  should  be 
meted  out  to  him  for  his  crimes,  at  least  he  did  not 

1  More  Wonders,  pp.  13,  14. 

2  Idem,  p.  10. 


THE   WITCHCRAFT.  405 

escape  unscathed,  for  Calef  and  the  Brattles,  who  had 
long  been  on  his  father's  track  and  his,  now  seized 
him  by  the  throat.  He  knew  well  they  had  been 
with  him  in  the  chamber  of  Margaret  Rule,  that  they 
had  gathered  all  the  evidence ;  and  so  when  Calef 
sent  him  a  challenge  to  stand  forth  and  defend  him- 
self, he  shuffled  and  equivocated. 

At  length  a  rumor  spread  abroad  that  a  volume  was 
to  be  published  exposing  the  whole  black  history,  and 
then  the  priest  began  to  cower.  His  Diary  is  full  of 
his  prayers  and  lamentations.  "  The  book  is  printed, 
and  the  impression  is  this  week  arrived  here.  ...  I 
set  myself  to  humble  myself  before  the  Lord  under 
these  humbling  and  wondrous  dispensations,  and  ob- 
tain the  pardon  of  my  sins,  that  have  rendered  me 
worthy  of  such  dispensations.  .  .  . 

"  28d.  10m.  Saturday.  —  The  Lord  has  permitted 
Satan  to  raise  an  extraordinary  storm  upon  my  father 
and  myself.  All  the  rage  of  Satan  against  the  holy 
churches  of  the  Lord  falls  upon  us.  First  Calf's  book, 
and  then  Coleman's,  do  set  the  people  in  a  mighty 
ferment.  All  the  adversaries  of  the  churches  lay  their 
heads  together,  as  if,  by  blasting  of  us,  they  hoped 
utterly  to  blow  up  all.  The  Lord  fills  my  soul  with 
consolations,  inexpressible  consolations,  when  I  think 
on  my  conformity  to  my  Lord  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
injuries  and  reproaches  that  are  cast  upon  me.  .  .  . 

"  5d.  2m.  Saturday  [1701].  —I  find  the  enemies  of 
the  churches  are  set  with  an  implacable  enmity  against 
myself  ;  and  one  vile  fool,  namely,  R.  Calf,  is  employed 


406  THE    WITCHCRAFT. 

by  them  to  go  on  with  more  of  his  filthy  scribbles  to 
hurt  my  precious  opportunities  of  glorifying  my  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  I  had  need  be  much  in  prayer  unto  my 
glorious  Lord  that  he  would  preserve  his  poor  servant 
from  the  malice  of  this  evil  generation,  and  of  that 
vile  man  particularly."  1 

"  More  Wonders  of  the  Invisible  World  "  appeared 
in  1700,  and  such  was  the  terror  the  clergy  still  in- 
spired it  is  said  it  had  to  be  sent  to  London  to  be 
printed,  and  when  it  was  published  no  bookseller  in 
Boston  dared  to  offer  it  in  his  shop.2  Yet  though 
it  was  burnt  in  the  college  yard  by  the  order  of  In- 
crease Mather,  it  was  widely  read,  and  dealt  the  death- 
blow to  the  witchcraft  superstition  of  New  England. 
It  did  more  than  this :  it  may  be  said  to  mark  an  era 
in  the  intellectual  development  of  Massachusetts,  for 
it  shook  to  its  centre  that  moral  despotism  which  the 
pastors  still  kept  almost  unimpaired  over  the  minds 
of  their  congregations,  by  demonstrating  to  the  people 
the  necessity  of  thinking  for  themselves.  But  what 
the  fate  of  its  authors  would  have  been  had  the  priests 
still  ruled  may  be  guessed  by  the  onslaught  made  on 
them  by  those  who  sat  at  the  Mathers'  feet.  "  Spit 
on,  Calf ;  thou  shalt  be  but  like  the  viper  on  Pauls 
hand,  easily  shaken  off,  and  without  any  damage  to 
the  servant  of  the  Lord."3 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.  Proc.  1855-58,  pp.  290-293. 

2  Some  Few  Remarks,  p.  9. 
«  Idem,  p.  22. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

SEATTLE   CHURCH. 

If  the  working  of  the  human  mind  is  mechanical, 
the  quality  of  its  action  must  largely  depend  upon  the 
training  it  receives.  Viewed  as  civilizing  agents, 
therefore,  systems  of  education  might  be  tested  by 
their  tendency  to  accelerate  or  retard  the  intellectual 
development  of  the  race.  The  proposition  is  capable 
of  being  presented  with  almost  mathematical  preci- 
sion ;  the  receptive  faculty  begins  to  fail  at  a  compar- 
atively early  age ;  thereafter  new  opinions  are  assimi- 
lated with  increasing  difficulty  until  the  power  is  lost. 
This  progressive  period  of  life,  which  is  at  best  brief, 
may,  however,  be  indefinitely  shortened  by  the  inter- 
position of  artificial  obstacles,  which  have  to  be  over- 
come by  a  waste  of  time  and  energy,  before  the  rea- 
son can  act  with  freedom  ;  and  when  these  obstacles 
are  sufficiently  formidable,  the  whole  time  is  con- 
sumed and  men  are  stationary.  The  most  effectual 
impediments  are  those  prejudices  which  are  so  easily 
implanted  in  youth,  and  which  acquire  tremendous 
power  when  based  on  superstitious  terrors.  Herein, 
then,  lies  the  radical  divergence  between  theological 
and  scientific  training :  the  one,  by  inculcating  that 
tradition  is  sacred,  that  accurate  investigation  is  sac- 


408  BRATTLE   CHURCH. 

rilege,  certain  to  be  visited  with  terrific  punishment, 
and  that  the  highest  moral  virtue  is  submission  to  au- 
thority, seeks  to  paralyze  exact  thought,  and  to  pro- 
duce a  condition  in  which  dogmatic  statements  of 
fact,  and  despotic  rules  of  conduct,  will  be  received 
with  abject  resignation ;  the  other,  by  stimulating 
the  curiosity,  endeavors  to  provoke  inquiry,  and,  by 
encouraging  a  scrutiny  of  what  is  obscure,  tries  to 
put  the  mind  in  an  impartial  and  questioning  attitude 
toward  all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe. 

The  two  methods  are  irreconcilable,  and  spring  from 
the  great  primary  instincts  which  are  called  conserva- 
tism and  liberality.  Necessarily  the  movement  of  any 
community  must  correspond  exactly  with  the  prepon- 
derance of  liberalism.  Where  the  theological  incu- 
bus is  unresisted  it  takes  the  form  of  a  sacred  caste, 
as  among  the  Hindoos  ;  appreciable  advance  then 
ceases,  except  from  some  external  pressure,  such  as 
conquest.  The  same  tendencies  in  a  mitigated  form 
are  seen  in  Spain,  whereas  Germany  is  scientific. 

Such  being  the  ceaseless  conflict  between  these  nat- 
ural forces,  the  vantage-points  for  which  the  oppos- 
ing parties  have  always  struggled  in  western  Europe 
are  the  pulpits  and  the  universities.  Through  women 
the  church  can  reach  children  at  their  most  impres- 
sionable age,  while  at  the  universities  the  teachers  are 
taught.  Obviously,  if  a  priesthood  can  control  both 
positions  their  influence  must  be  immense.  At  the 
beginning  of  any  movement  the  conservatives  are  al- 
most necessarily  in  possession,  and  their  worst  reverses 


BRATTLE   CHURCH.  409 

have  come  from  defection  from  within  ;  for  unless 
their  organization  is  so  perfect  as  not  only  to  be  ani- 
mated by  a  single  purpose,  but  capable  of  being  con- 
trolled by  a  single  will,  liberals  will  penetrate  within 
the  fold,  and  if  they  can  maintain  their  footing  and 
preach  with  the  authority  of  the  ancient  tradition  it 
leads  to  revolution.  It  was  thus  the  Reformation  was 
accomplished. 

The  clergy  of  Massachusetts,  with  the  true  priestly 
instinct,  took  in  the  bearings  of  their  situation  from 
the  instant  they  recognized  that  their  political  suprem- 
acy was  passing  away,  and  in  order  to  keep  their 
organization  in  full  vigor  they  addressed  themselves 
with  unabated  energy  to  enforcing  the  discipline  which 
had  been  established ;  at  the  same  time  they  set  the 
ablest  of  their  number  on  guard  at  Harvard.  But 
the  task  was  beyond  their  strength ;  they  might  as 
well  have  tried  to  dam  the  rising  tide  with  sand. 

There  is  a  limit  to  the  capacity  of  even  the  most 
gifted  man,  and  Increase  Mather  committed  a  fatal 
error  when  he  tried  to  be  professor,  clergyman,  and 
statesman  at  once.  He  was,  it  is  true,  made  presi- 
dent in  1685,  but  the  next  year  John  Leverett  and 
William  Brattle  were  chosen  tutors  and  fellows,  who 
soon  developed  into  ardent  liberals  ;  so  it  happened 
that  when  the  reverend  rector  went  abroad  in  1688, 
in  his  character  of  politician,  he  left  the  college  in 
the  complete  control  of  his  adversaries.  He  was  ab- 
sent four  years,  and  during  this  interval  the  man 
was  educated  who  was  destined  to  overthrow  the  Cam- 


410  BRATTLE   CHURCH. 

bridge  Platform,  the  corner-stone  of  the  conservative 
power. 

Benjamin  Colman  was  one  of  Leverett's  favorite 
pupils  and  the  intimate  friend  of  Pemberton.  As  he 
was  to  be  a  minister,  he  stayed  at  Cambridge  until  he 
took  his  master's  degree  in  1695 ;  he  then  sailed  at 
once  for  England  in  the  Swan.  When  she  had  been 
some  weeks  at  sea  she  was  attacked  by  a  French  pri- 
vateer, who  took  her  after  a  sharp  action.  During 
the  fight  Colman  attracted  attention  by  his  coolness ; 
but  he  declared  that  though  he  fired  like  the  rest, 
"he  was  sensible  of  no  courage  but  of  a  great  deal  of 
fear ;  and  when  they  had  received  two  or  three  broad- 
sides he  wondered  when  his  courage  would  come,  as 
he  had  heard  others  talk."  1 

After  the  capture  the  Frenchmen  stripped  him  and 
put  him  in  the  hold,  and  had  it  not  been  for  a  Ma- 
dame Allaire,  who  kept  his  money  for  him,  he  might 
very  possibly  have  perished  from  the  exposure  of  an 
imprisonment  in  France,  for  his  lungs  were  delicate. 
Moreover,  at  this  time  of  his  life  he  was  always  a 
pauper,  for  he  was  not  only  naturally  generous,  but 
so  innocent  and  confiding  as  to  fall  a  victim  to  any 
clumsy  sharper.  Of  course  he  reached  London  pen- 
niless and  in  great  depression  of  spirits ;  but  he  soon 
became  known  among  the  dissenting  clergy,  and  at 
length  settled  at  Bath,  where  he  preached  two  years. 
He  seems  to  have  formed  singularly  strong  friend- 
ships while  in  England,  one  of  which  was  with  Mr. 
1  Life  of  B.  Colman,  p.  6. 


BRATTLE   CHURCH.  411 

Walter  Singer,  at  whose  house  he  passed  much  time, 
and  who  wrote  him  at  parting,  "  Methinks  there  is 
one  place  vacant  in  my  affections,  which  nobody  can 
fill  beside  you.  But  this  blessing  was  too  great  for 
me,  and  God  has  reserved  it  for  those  that  more  de- 
served it.  —  I  cannot  but  hope  sometimes  that  Prov- 
idence has  yet  in  store  so  much  happiness  for  me, 
that  I  shall  yet  see  you."  1 

Meanwhile  opinion  was  maturing  fast  at  home  ;  the 
passions  of  the  witchcraft  convulsion  had  gone  deep, 
and  in  1697  a  movement  began  under  the  guidance 
of  Leverett  and  the  Brattles  to  form  a  liberal  Con- 
gregational church.  The  close  on  which  the  meeting- 
house was  to  stand  was  conveyed  by  Thomas  Brattle 
to  trustees  on  January  10,  1698,  and  from  the  outset 
there  seems  to  have  been  no  doubt  as  to  whom  the 
pastor  should  be.  On  the  10th  of  May,  1699,  a  for- 
mal invitation  was  dispatched  to  Colman  by  a  com- 
mittee, of  which  Thomas  Brattle  was  chairman,  and 
it  was  accompanied  by  letters  from  many  prominent 
liberals.  Leverett  wrote,  "  I  shall  exceedingly  re- 
joice at  your  return  to  your  country.  We  want  per- 
sons of  your  character.  The  affair  offered  to  your 
consideration  is  of  the  greatest  moment."  William 
Brattle  was  even  more  emphatic,  while  Pemberton 
assured  him  that  "  the  gentlemen  who  solicit  your  re- 
turn are  mostly  known  to  you  —  men  of  repute  and 
figure,  from  whom  you  may  expect  generous  treat- 
ment ;  .  .  .  I  believe  your  return  will  be  pleasing  to 
1  Life  of  B.  Colman,  p.  48. 


412  BRATTLE  CHURCH. 

all  that  know  you,  I  am  sure  it  will  be  inexpressi- 
bly so  to  your  unfeigned  friend  and  servant."  l  It 
was,  however,  thought  prudent  to  have  him  ordained 
in  London,  since  there  was  no  probability  that  the 
clergy  of  Massachusetts  would  perform  the  rite. 
When  he  landed  in  November,  after  an  absence  of 
four  years,  he  was  in  the  flush  of  early  manhood, 
highly  trained  for  theological  warfare,  having  seen 
the  world,  and  by  no  means  in  awe  of  his  old  pastor, 
the  reverend  president  of  Harvard. 

The  first  step  after  his  arrival  was  to  declare  the 
liberal  policy,  and  this  was  done  in  a  manifesto  which 
was  published  almost  at  once.2  The  efficiency  of  the 
Congregational  organization  depended  upon  the  per- 
fection of  the  guard  which  the  ministers  and  the  con- 
gregations mutually  kept  over  each  other.  On  the 
one  hand  no  dangerous  element  could  creep  in  among 
the  people  through  the  laxness  of  the  elder,  since  all 
candidates  for  the  communion  had  to  pass  through 
the  ordeal  of  a  public  examination ;  on  the  other  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  ministers  was  provided  for,  not  only 
by  restricting  the  elective  body  to  the  communicants, 
but  by  the  power  of  the  ordained  clergy  to  "  except 
against  any  election  of  a  pastor  who  .  .  .  may  be 
.  .  .  unfit  for  the  common  service  of  the  gospel."  3 

The  declaration  of  the  Brattle  Street  "undertakers" 

1  Life  ofB.  Caiman,  pp.  43,  44. 

2  History  of  Brattle  St.  Church,  p.  20. 

8  Propositions  determined  by  the  Assembly  of  Ministers.  Mag- 
nolia, bk.  5,  Hist.  Remarks,  §  8. 


BRATTLE   CHURCH.  413 

cut  this  system  at  the  root,  for  they  announced  their 
intention  to  dispense  with  the  relation  of  experiences, 
thus  practically  throwing  their  communion  open  to  all 
respectable  persons  who  would  confess  the  Westmin- 
ster Creed ;  and  more  fatal  still,  they  absolutely  de- 
stroyed the  homogeneousness  of  the  ecclesiastical  con- 
stituency :  "  We  cannot  confine  the  right  of  chusing 
a  minister  to  the  male  communicants  alone,  but  we 
think  that  every  baptized  adult  person  who  contrib- 
utes to  the  maintenance,  should  have  a  vote  in  elect- 
ing." i 

They  also  proposed  several  innovations  of  minor 
importance,  such  as  relaxing  the  baptismal  regula- 
tions, and  somewhat  changing  the  established  service 
by  having  the  Bible  read  without  comment. 

Their  temporal  power  was  gone,  toleration  was  the 
law  of  the  land  they  had  once  possessed,  and  now  an 
onslaught  was  to  be  made  upon  the  intellectual  ascen- 
dency which  the  clergy  felt  certain  of  maintaining 
over  their  people,  if  only  they  could  enforce  obedience 
in  their  own  ranks.  The  danger,  too,  was  the  more 
alarming  because  so  insidious ;  for,  though  their  prop- 
ositions seemed  reasonable,  it  was  perfectly  obvious 
that  should  the  liberals  succeed  in  forcing  their  church 
within  the  pale  of  the  orthodox  communion,  discipline 
must  end,  and  the  pulpits  might  at  any  time  be  filled 
with  men  capable  of  teaching  the  most  subversive  doc- 
trines. Although  such  might  be  the  inexorable  des- 
tiny of  the  Massachusetts  hierarchy,  it  was  not  in 
1  History  of  Brattle  St.  Church,  p.  25,  Prop.  16. 


414  BRATTLE  CHURCH. 

ecclesiastical  human  nature  to  accept  the  dispensation 
with  meekness,  and  the  utterances  of  the  conservative 
divines  seem  hardly  to  breathe  the  spirit  of  that  gos- 
pel they  preached  at  such  interminable  length. 

Yet  it  was  very  difficult  to  devise  a  scheme  of  re- 
sistance. They  were  powerless  to  coerce  ;  for,  al- 
though Increase  Mather  had  taken  care,  when  at  the 
summit  of  his  power,  to  have  a  statute  passed  which 
had  the  effect  of  reenacting  the  Cambridge  Platform, 
it  had  been  disapproved  by  the  king ;  therefore,  moral 
intimidation  was  the  only  weapon  which  could  be  em- 
ployed. Now,  aside  from  the  fact  that  men  like 
Thomas  Brattle  and  Leverett  were  not  timorous,  their 
position  was  at  this  moment  very  strong  from  the 
stand  they  had  taken  in  the  witchcraft  troubles,  and 
worst  of  all,  they  were  openly  supported  by  William 
Brattle,  who  was  already  a  minister,  and  by  Pember- 
ton,  who  was  a  fellow  of  Harvard,  and  soon  to  be 
ordained. 

The  attack  was,  however,  begun  by  Mr.  Higginson, 
and  Mr.  Noyes,  of  witchcraft  memory,  in  a  long  re- 
buke, whose  temper  may  be  imagined  from  such  a 
sentence  as  this :  "  We  cannot  but  think  you  might 
have  entered  upon  your  declaration  with  more  rev- 
erence and  humility  than  so  solemnly  to  appeal  to 
God,  your  judge,  that  you  do  it  with  all  the  sincerity 
and  seriousness  the  nature  of  your  engagement  com- 
mands from  you ;  seeing  you  were  most  of  you  much 
unstudied  in  the  controversial  points  of  church  order 
and  discipline,  and  yet  did  not  advise  with  the  neigh- 


BRATTLE   CHURCH.  415 

boring  churches  .  .  .  but  with  a  great  deal  of  con- 
fidence and  freedom,  set  up  by  yourselves."  The 
letter  then  goes  on  to  adjure  them  to  revoke  the  man- 
ifesto, and  adjust  matters  with  the  "neighbouring 
elders,"  "  that  so  the  right  hand  of  fellowship  may 
be  given  to  your  pastor  by  other  pastors,  .  .  .  and 
that  you  may  not  be  the  beginning  of  a  schism  that 
will  dishonour  God,  .  .  .  and  be  a  matter  of  triumph 
to  the  bad." l 

Cotton  Mather's  Diary,  however,  gives  the  most 
pleasing  view  of  the  high  churchmen  :  — 

"  1699.  7th,  10th  m.  (Dec.)  I  see  another  day  of 
temptation  begun  upon  the  town  and  land.  A  com- 
pany of  headstrong  men  in  the  town,  the  chief  of 
whom  are  full  of  malignity  to  the  holy  ways  of  our 
churches,  have  built  in  the  town  another  meeting- 
house. To  delude  many  better  meaning  men  in  their 
own  company,  and  the  churches  in  the  neighbourhood, 
they  passed  a  vote  in  the  foundation  of  the  proceed- 
ings that  they  would  not  vary  from  the  practice  of 
these  churches,  except  in  one  little  particular. 

"  But  a  young  man  born  and  bred  here,  and  hence 
gone  for  England,  is  now  returned  hither  at  their  in- 
vitation, equipped  with  an  ordination  to  qualify  him 
for  all  that  is  intended  on  his  returning  and  arriving 
here ;  these  fallacious  people  desert  their  vote,  and 
without  the  advice  or  knowledge  of  the  ministers  in 
the  vicinity,  they  have  published,  under  the  title  of  a 
manifesto,  certain  articles  that  utterly  subvert  our 
1  History  of  Brattle  St.  Church,  pp.  29-37. 


416  BRATTLE   CHURCH. 

churches,  and  invite  an  ill  party,  through  all  the  coun- 
try, to  throw  all  into  confusion  on  the  first  opportuni- 
ties. This  drives  the  ministers  that  would  be  faithful 
unto  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  his  interests  in  the 
churches,  unto  a  necessity  of  appearing  for  their  de- 
fence. No  little  part  of  these  actions  must  unavoid- 
ably fall  to  my  share.  I  have  already  written  a  large 
monitory  letter  to  these  innovators,  which,  though  most 
lovingly  penned,  yet  enrages  their  violent  and  imperi- 
ous lusts  to  carry  on  the  apostacy." 

"  1699.  5th  d.  llth  m.  (Saturday.)  I  see  Satan  be- 
ginning a  terrible  shake  in  the  churches  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  the  innovators  that  had  set  up  a  new  church 
in  Boston  (a  new  one  indeed  !)  have  made  a  day  of 
temptation  among  us.  The  men  are  ignorant,  arro- 
gant, obstinate,  and  full  of  malice  and  slander,  and 
they  fill  the  land  with  lies,  in  the  misrepresentations 
whereof  I  am  a  very  singular  sufferer.  Wherefore  I 
set  apart  this  day  again  for  prayer  in  my  study,  to  cry 
mightily  unto  God." l 

u  21st  d.  llth  m.  The  people  of  the  new  church 
in  Boston,  who,  by  their  late  manifesto,  went  on  in  an 
ill  way,  and  in  a  worse  frame,  and  the  town  was  filled 
with  sin,  and  especially  with  slanders,  wherein  espe- 
cially my  father  and  myself  were  sufferers.  We  two, 
with  many  prayers  and  studies,  and  with  humble  res- 
ignation of  our  names  unto  the  Lord,  prepared  a 
faithful  antidote  for  our  churches  against  the  infec- 
tion of  the  example,  which  we  feared  this  company 
1  History  of  Harvard,  Quincy,  i.  486,  487,  App.  x. 


BRATTLE  CHURCH.  417 

had  given  them,  and  we  put  it  into  the  press.  But 
when  the  first  sheet  was  near  composed  at  the  press, 
I  stopped  it,  with  a  desire  to  make  one  attempt  more 
for  the  bringing  of  this  people  to  .reason.  I  drew 
up  a  proposal,  and,  with  another  minister,  carried  it 
unto  them,  who  at  first  rejected  it,  but  afterward  so 
far  embraced  it,  as  to  promise  that  they  will  the  next 
week  publicly  recognize  their  covenant  with  God  and 
gne  another,  and  therewithall  declare  their  adherence 
to  the  Heads  of  Agreement  of  the  United  Brethren 
in  England,  and  request  the  communion  of  our 
churches  in  that  foundation."  1 

This  last  statement  is  marked  by  the  exuberance 
of  imagination  for  which  the  Mathers  are  so  famed. 
In  truth,  Dr.  Mather  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  set- 
tlement. The  facts  were  these :  after  Brattle  Street 
Church  was  organized,  the  congregation  voted  that 
Mr.  Colman  should  ask  the  ministers  of  the  town  to 
keep  a  day  of  prayer  with  them.  On  the  28th  of 
December,  1699,  they  received  the  following  sugges- 
tive answer :  — 

MR.  COLMAN  : 

Whereas  you  have  signified  to  us  that  your  so- 
ciety have  desired  us  to  join  with  them  in  a  public 
fast,  in  order  to  your  intended  communion,  our  an- 
swer is,  that  as  we  have  formerly  once  and  again  in- 
sinuated unto  you,  that  if  you  would  in  due  manner  lay 
aside  what  you  call  your  manifesto,  and  resolve  and 
1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  487,  App.  x. 


418  BRATTLE   CHURCH. 

declare  that  you  will  keep  to  the  heads  of  agreement 
on  which  the  United  Brethren  in  London  have  made 
their  union,  and  then  publicly  proceed  with  the  pres- 
ence, countenance,  and  concurrence  of  the  New  Eng- 
land churches,  we  should  be  free  to  give  you  our  fel- 
lowship and  our  best  assistance,  which  things  you 
have  altogether  declined  and  neglected  to  do  ;  thus  we 
must  now  answer,  that,  if  you  will  give  us  the  satisfac- 
tion which  the  law  of  Christ  requires  for  your  diso£- 
derly  proceedings,  we  shall  be  happy  to  gratify  your 
desires  ;  otherwise,  we  may  not  do  it,  lest  ...  we  be- 
come partakers  of  the  guilt  of  those  irregularities  by 
which  you  have  given  just  cause  of  offence.  .  .  . 

INCREASE  MATHER. 

JAMES  ALLEN.1 

Under  the  theocracy  a  subservient  legislature  would 
have  voted  the  association  "  a  seditious  conspiracy," 
and  the  country  would  have  been  cleared  of  Leverett, 
Colman,  the  Brattles,  and  their  abettors  ;  but  in  1700 
the  priests  no  longer  manipulated  the  constituencies, 
and  there  was  actual  danger  to  the  conservative  cause 
from  their  violence  ;  therefore  Stoughton  exerted  him- 
self to  muzzle  the  Mathers,  and  he  did  succeed  in  qui- 
eting them  for  the  moment,  though  Sewall  seems  to 
intimate  that  they  submitted  with  no  very  good  grace : 
[H&&-]  "  Jan*  24th.  The  L*  Govr  [Stoughton]  calls 
me  with  him  to  Mr.  Wiilards,  where  out  of  two  pa- 
pers Mr.  Wm  Brattle  drew  up  a  third  for  an  accomo- 

1  History  of  Brattle  St.  Church,  p.  55. 


BRATTLE  CHURCH.  419 

dation  to  bring  on  an  agreement  between  the  new- 
church  and  our  ministers  ;  Mr.  Colman  got  his  breth- 
ren to  subscribe  it.  ...  Jany  25th.  Mr.  I.  Mather,  Mr. 
C.  Mather,  Mr.  Willard,  Mr.  Wadsworth,  and  S.  S. 
wait  on  the  L*  Govr  at  Mr.  Coopers  :  to  confer  about 
the  writing  drawn  up  the  evening  before.  Was  some 
heat ;  but  grew  calmer,  and  after  lecture  agreed  to  be 
present  at  the  fast  which  is  to  be  observed  Jany  31."  l 

Humility  has  sometimes  been  extolled  as  the  crown- 
ing grace  of  Christian  clergymen,  but  Cotton  Mather's 
Diary  shows  the  intolerable  arrogance  of  the  early 
Congregational  divines. 

"  A  wonderful  joy  filled  the  hearts  of  our  good 
people  far  and  near,  that  we  had  obtained  thus  much 
from  them.  Our  strife  seemed  now  at  an  end  ;  there 
was  much  relenting  in  some  of  their  spirits,  when  they 
saw  our  condescension,  our  charity,  our  compassion. 
We  overlooked  all  past  offences.  We  kept  the  public 
fast  with  them  .  .  .  and  my  father  preached  with 
them  on  following  peace  with  holiness,  and  I  concluded 
with  prayer."  2 

Yet,  although  there  had  been  this  ostensible  recon- 
ciliation, those  who  have  appreciated  the  sensitiveness 
to  sin,  of  him  whom  Dr.  Eliot  calls  the  patriarch  and 
his  son,  must  already  feel  certain  they  were  incapable 
of  letting  Colman's  impiety  pass  unrebuked ;  indeed, 
the  Diary  says  the  "  faithful  antidote  "  was  at  that 
moment  in  the  press,  and  it  was  not  long  before  it  was 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fifth  series,  vi.  2. 

2  History  of  Harvard,  i.  487,  App.  x. 


420  BRATTLE   CHURCH. 

published,  sanctified  by  their  prayers.  The  patriarch 
began  by  telling  how  he  was  defending  the  "cause 
of  Christ  and  of  his  churches  in  New  England," 
and  "  if  we  espouse  such  principles  ...  we  then  give 
away  the  whole  Congregational  cause  at  once."  l  He 
assured  his  hearers  that  a  "  wandering  Levite  "  like 
Colraan  was  no  more  a  pastor  than  he  who  "  has  no 
children  is  a  father," 2  he  was  shocked  at  the  aban- 
donment of  the  relation  of  experiences,  and  was  so 
scandalized  at  reading  the  Bible  without  comment  he 
could  only  describe  it  as  "  dumb."  In  a  word,  there 
was  nothing  the  new  congregation  had  done  which 
was  not  displeasing  to  the  Lord ;  but  if  they  had  of- 
fended in  one  particular  more  than  another  it  was  in 
establishing  a  man  in  "  the  pastoral  office  without  the 
approbation  of  neighbouring  churches  or  elders."  3  To 
this  solemn  admonition  Colman  and  William  Brattle 
had  the  irreverence  to  prepare  a  reply  smacking  of 
levity;  nevertheless,  they  began  with  a  grave  and  no- 
ble definition  of  their  principles.  "  The  liberties  and 
privileges  which  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  given  to 
his  church  .  .  .  consist  ...  in  ...  that  our  con- 
sciences be  not  imposed  on  by  men  or  their  tradi- 
tions." "  We  are  reflected  on  as  casting  dishonour 
on  our  parents,  &  their  pious  design  in  the  first  settle- 
ment of  this  land.  ...  Some  have  made  this  the  great 
design,  to  be  freed  from  the  impositions  of  men  in 

1  Order  of  the  Gospel,  pp.  8,  9. 

2  Idem,  p.  102. 
8  Idem,  p.  8. 


BRATTLE   CHURCH.  421 

the  worship  of  God.  ...  In  this  we  are  risen  np  to 
make  good  their  grounds."  l 

They  then  went  on  to  expose  the  abuse  of  public 
relations  of  experiences :  "  But  this  is  the  misery,  the 
more  meek  and  fearful  are  hereby  kept  out  of  God's 
house,  while  the  more  conceited  and  presumptuous 
never  boggle  at  this,  or  anything  else.  But  it  seems 
there  is  a  gross  corruption  of  this  laudable  practice 
which  the  author  does  well  to  censure ;  and  that  is, 
when  some,  who  have  no  good  intention  of  their  own, 
get  others  to  devise  a  relation  for  them."  2  They  even 
dared  to  intimate  that  it  did  not  savor  of  modesty  for 
the  patriarch  "  to  think  any  one  of  his  sermons,  or 
short  comments,  can  edifie  more  than  the  reading  of 
twenty  chapters."  3  And  .then  they  added  some  sen- 
tences, which  were  afterward  declared  by  the  vener- 
able victim  to  be  as  scurrilous  as  other  portions  of  the 
pamphlet  were  profane. 

"  We  are  assured,  the  author  is  esteemed  more  a 
Presbyterian  than  a  Congregational  man,  by  scores 
of  his  friends  in  London.  He  is  lov'd  and  reverenced 
for  a  moderate  spirit,  a  peaceable  disposition,  and  a 
temper  so  widely  different  from  his  late  brothers  in 
London.  .  .  .  Did  our  reverend  author  appear  the 
same  here,  we  should  be  his  easie  proselites  too.  But 
we  are  loath  to  say  how  he  forfeits  that  venerable 
character,  which  might  have  consecrated  his  name  to 

1  Gospel  Order  Revived,  Epistle  Dedicatory. 

2  Idem,  p.  9. 

3  Idem,  p.  15. 


422  BRATTLE  CHURCH. 

posterity,  more  than  his  learning,  or  other  honorary 
titles  can." l 

No  printer  in  Boston  dared  to  be  responsible -for 
this  ribaldry,  and  when  it  came  home  from  New  York 
and  was  actually  cast  before  the  people,  words  fail  to 
convey  the  condition  into  which  the  patriarch  was 
thrown.  At  last  his  emotions  found  a  vent  in  a  tract 
which  he  prepared  jointly  with  his  son. 

"A  moral  heathen  would  not  have  done  as  he  has 
done.2  .  .  .  There  is  no  one  thing,  which  does  more 
threaten  or  disgrace  New-England,  than  want  of  due 
respect  unto  superiors.3  ...  It  is  a  disgrace  to  the 
name  of  Presbyterian,  that  such  as  he  is  should  pre- 
tend unto  it 4  ...  and  if  our  children  should  learn  from 
them,  ...  we  may  tremble  to  think,  what  a  flood  of 
profaneness  and  atheism  would  break  in  upon  us,  and 
ripen  us  for  the  dreadfullest  judgments  of  God.5  .  .  . 
They  assault  him  [the  aged  president]  with  a  volley  of 
rude  jeers  and  taunts,  as  if  they  were  so  many  children 
of  Bethel."  6  Among  these  taunts  some  struck  deep, 
for  they  are  quoted  at  length.  "  'Abundance  of  people 
have  long  obstinately  believed,  that  the  contest  on  his 
part,  is  more  for  lordship  and  dominion,  than  for 
truth.'  But  there  are  many  more  such  passages,  which 
laid  altogether,  would  make  a  considerable  dung- 
Mi."  7  They  dwelt  with  pathos  upon  those  sacred  rites 

1  Gospel  Order  Revived,  pp.  34,  35. 

2  Collection  of  Some  of  the  More  Offensive  Matters,  Preface. 
8  Idem,  p.  10.  4  Idem,  p.  13.  6  Idem,  p.  7. 
6  Idem,  p.  8.                   7  Idem,  p.  9. 


BRATTLE  CHURCH.  423 

desecrated  by  these  "  unsanctified  "  "  young  men  "  in 
their  "  miserable  pamphlet."  "  The  Lord  is  exceed- 
ingly glorified,  and  his  people  are  edified,  by  the  ac- 
counts, which  the  candidates,  of  the  communion  in  our 
churches  give  of  that  self-examination  which  is  by  plain 
institution  ...  a  qualification,  of  the  communicants. 
Now  these  think  it  not  enough  to  charge  the  churches, 
which  require  &  expect  such  accounts,  with  exceed- 
ingly provoking  the  Lord.  But  of  the  tears  dropt 
by  holy  souls  on  those  occasions,  they  say  with  a  scoff, 
'  whether  they  be  for  joy  or  grief,  we  are  left  in  the 
dark.'  " 1  But  the  suffering  divines  found  peace  in 
knowing  that  Christ  himself  would  inflict  the  punish- 
ment upon  these  abandoned  men  which  the  priests 
would  have  meted  out  with  holy  joy  had  they  still 
possessed  the  power. 

"  Considering  that  the  things  contained  in  their 
pamphlet,  are  a  deep  apostasy,  in  conjunction  with 
such  open  impiety,  and  profane  scurrility  against  the 
holy  wayes  in  which  our  fathers  walked,  in  case  it  be- 
come the  sin  of  the  land,  (as  it  will  do  if  not  duely 
testified  against)  we  may  fear  that  some  heavy  judg- 
ment will  come  upon  the  whole  land.  And  will  not 
the  holy  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  walks  in  tfee  midst 
of  his  golden  candlesticks,  make  all  the  churches  to 
know  .  .  .  that  these  men  have  provoked  the  Lord !  "  * 

Yet,  notwithstanding  the  Mathers'  piteous  prayers, 
God  heeded  them  not,  and  the  rising  tide  that  was 

1  Collection  of  Some  of  the  More  Offensive  Matters,  p.  6. 

2  Idem,  pp.  18,  19. 


424  BRATTLE  CHURCH. 

sweeping  over  them  soon  drowned  their  cries.  Brattle 
Street  congregation  became  an  honored  member  of 
the  orthodox  communion,  the  principles  which  ani- 
mated its  founders  spread  apace,  and  the  name  of 
Benjamin  Colman  waxed  great  in  the  land.  The 
liberals  had  penetrated  the  stronghold  of  the  church. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

FOR  more  than  two  centuries  one  ceaseless  anthem 
of  adulation  has  been  chanted  in  Massachusetts  in 
honor  of  the  ecclesiastics  who  founded  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and  this  act  has  not  infrequently  been  cited 
as  incontrovertible  proof  that  they  were  both  liberal 
and  progressive  at  heart.  The  laudation  of  ancestors 
is  a  task  as  easy  as  it  is  popular ;  but  history  deals 
with  the  sequence  of  cause  and  effect,  and  an  exam- 
ination of  facts,  apart  from  sentiment,  tends  to  show 
that  in  building  a  college  the  clergy  were  actuated  by 
no  loftier  motive  than  intelligent  self-interest,  if,  in- 
deed, they  were  not  constrained  thereto  by  the  inex- 
orable exigencies  of  their  position. 

The  truth  of  this  proposition  becomes  apparent  if 
the  soundness  of  the  following  analysis  be  conceded. 

There  would  seem  to  be  a  point  in  the  pathway  of 
civilization  where  every  race  passes  more  or  less  com- 
pletely under  the  dominion  of  a  sacred  caste ;  when 
and  how  the  more  robust  have  emerged  into  freedom 
is  uncertain,  but  enough  is  known  to  make  it  possible 
to  trace  the  process  by  which  this  insidious  power  is 
acquired,  and  the  means  by  which  it  is  perpetuated. 
A  flood  of  light  has,  moreover,  been  shed  on  this  class 


426  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

of   subjects  by  the  recent  remarkable   investigations 
among  the  Zunis.1 

Most  American  Indians  are  in  the  matriarchal  pe- 
riod of  development,  which  precedes  the  patriarchal; 
and  it  is  then,  should  they  become  sedentary,  that 
caste  appears  to  be  born.  Some  valuable  secret,  such 
as  a  cure  for  the  bite  of  the  rattlesnake,  is  discovered, 
and  this  gives  the  finder,  and  chosen  members  of  his 
clan  with  whom  he  shares  it,  a  peculiar  sanctity  in 
the  eyes  of  the  rest  of  the  tribe.  Like  facts,  however, 
become  known  to  other  clans,  and  then  coalitions  are 
made  which  take  the  form  of  esoteric  societies,  and 
from  these  the  stronger  savages  gradually  exclude  the 
weaker  and  their  descendants.  Meanwhile  an  elabo- 
rate ritual  is  developed,  and  so  an  hereditary  priest- 
hood comes  into  life,  which  always  claims  to  have  re- 
ceived its  knowledge  by  revelation,  and  which  teaches 
that  resistance  to  its  will  is  sacrilege.  Nevertheless 
the  sacerdotal  power  is  seldom  firmly  established 
without  a  struggle,  the  memory  whereof  is  carefully 
preserved  as  a  warning  of  the  danger  of  incurring  the 
divine  wrath.  A  good  example  of  such  a  myth  is  the 
fable  of  the  rebellious  Zuni  fire-priest,  who  at  the 
prayer  of  his  orthodox  brethren  was  destroyed  with 
all  his  clan  by  a  boiling  torrent  poured  from  the 
burning  mountain,  sacred  to  their  order,  by  the  aveng- 
ing gods.  Compare  this  with  the  story  of  Korah; 
and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  the  priestly  chron- 

1  Made  by  Mr.  F.  H.  Gushing,  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology, 
Smithsonian  Institution. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  427 

icier,  in  order  to  throw  the  profounder  awe  about  his 
class,  has  made  the  great  national  prophet  the  author 
of  the  exclusion  of  the  body  of  the  Levites  from  the 
caste,  in  favor  of  his  own  brother.  "  And  they  gath- 
ered themselves  together  against  Moses  and  against 
Aaron,  and  said  unto  them,  Ye  take  too  much  upon 
you,  seeing  all  the  congregation  are  holy,  .  .  .  where- 
fore then  lift  ye  up  yourselves  above  the  congregation 
of  the  Lord  ? 

"  And  when  Moses  heard  it,  he  fell  upon  his  face." 
Then  he  told  Korah  and  his  followers,  who  were  de- 
scendants of  Levi  and  legally  entitled  to  act  as  priests 
by  existing  customs,  to  take  censers  and  burn  incense, 
and  it  would  appear  whether  the  Lord  would  respect 
their  offering.  So  every  man  took  his  censer,  and 
Korah  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  more  stood  in  the 
door  of  the  tabernacle. 

Then  Moses  said,  if  "  the  earth  open  her  mouth, 
and  swallow  them  up,  with  all  that  appertain  unto 
them,  and  they  go  down  quick  into  the  pit ;  then 
ye  shall  understand  that  these  men  have  provoked 
the  Lord.  .  .  . 

"  And  the  earth  opened  her  mouth,  and  swallowed 
them  up,  and  their  houses,  and  all  the  men  that  ap- 
pertained unto  Korah,  and  all  their  goods. 

"  They,  and  all  that  appertained  to  them,  went 
down  alive  into  the  pit,  and  the  earth  closed  upon 
them :  .  .  .  And  all  Israel  that  were  round  about 
them  fled  at  the  cry  of  them  :  for  they  said,  Lest  the 
earth  swallow  us  up  also."  l 

1  Numbers  xvi. 


428  HARVARD   COLLEGE, 

Traces  of  a  similar  conflict  are  found  in  Hindoo 
sacred  literature,  and  probably  the  process  has  been 
well-nigh  universal.  The  caste,  therefore,  originates 
in  knowledge,  real  and  pretended,  kept  by  secret  tra- 
dition in  certain  families,  and  its  power  is  maintained 
by  systematized  terrorism.  But  to  learn  the  myste- 
ries and  ritual  requires  a  special  education,  hence 
those  destined  for  the  priesthood  have  careful  provi- 
sion made  for  their  instruction.  The  youthful  Zufii  is 
taught  at  the  sacred  college  at  the  shrine  of  his  order ; 
the  pious  Hindoo  lives  for  years  with  some  famous 
Brahmin ;  as  soon  as  the  down  came  on  the  cheek,  the 
descendants  of  Aaron  were  taken  into  the  Temple  at 
Jerusalem,  and  all  have  read  how  Hannah  carried 
the  infant  Samuel  to  the  house  of  the  Lord  at  Shiloh, 
and  how  the  child  did  minister  unto  the  Lord  before 
Eli  the  priest. 

These  facts  seem  to  lead  to  well-defined  conclusions 
when  applied  to  New  England  history.  In  their  pas- 
sionate zeal  the  colonists  conceived  the  idea  of  repro- 
ducing, as  far  as  they  could,  the  society  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, or,  in  other  words,  of  reverting  to  the  archaic 
stage  of  caste  ;  and  in  point  of  fact  they  did  succeed 
in  creating  a  theocratic  despotism  which  lasted  in  full 
force  for  more  than  forty  years.  Of  course,  in  the 
seventeenth  century  such  a  phase  of  feeling  was  ephem- 
eral ;  but  the  phenomena  which  attended  it  are  excep- 
tionally interesting,  and  possibly  they  are  somewhat 
similar  to  those  which  accompany  the  liberation  of  a 
primitive  people. 


HARVARD  COLLEGE.         .  429 

The  knowledge  which  divided  the  Massachusetts 
clergy  from  other  men  was  their  supposed  proficiency 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  ancient  writings  contain- 
ing the  revelations  of  God.  For  the  perpetuation 
of  this  lore  a  seminary  was  as  essential  to  them  as 
an  association  of  priests  for  the  instruction  of  neo- 
phytes is  to  the  Zuni  now,  or  as  the  training  at  the 
Temple  was  to  the  Jews.  In  no  other  way  could  the 
popular  faith  in  their  special  sanctity  be  sustained. 
It  is  also  true  that  few  priesthoods  have  made  more 
systematic  use  of  terror.  The  slaughter  of  Anne 
Hutchinson  and  her  family  was  exultingly  declared  to 
be  the  judgment  of  God  for  defaming  the  elders.  In- 
srease  Mather  denounced  the  disobedient  Colman  in 
the  words  of  Moses  to  Korah;  Cotton  Mather  rev- 
elled in  picturing  the  torments  of  the  bewitched ;  and, 
even  in  the  last  century  Jonathan  Edwards  frightened 
people  into  convulsions  by  his  preaching.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  obvious  that  the  reproduction  of  the 
Mosaic  law  could  not  in  the  nature  of  things  have 
been  complete ;  and  the  two  weak  points  in  the  other- 
wise strong  position  of  the  clergy  were  that  the  spirit 
of  their  age  did  not  permit  them  to  make  their  order 
hereditary,  nor,  although  their  college  was  a  true  theo- 
logical school,  did  they  perceive  the  danger  of  allow- 
ing any  lay  admixture.  The  tendency  to  weaken  the 
force  of  the  discipline  is  obvious,  yet  they  were  led  to 
abandon  the  safe  Biblical  precedent,  not  only  by  their 
own  early  associations,  but  by  their  hatred  of  anything 
savoring  of  Catholicism. 


430  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

Men  to  be  great  leaders  must  exalt  their  cause 
above  themselves  ;  and  if  so  godly  a  man  as  the  Rev. 
Increase  Mather  can  be  said  to  have  had  a  human 
failing  it  was  an  inordinate  love  of  money  and  of  flat- 
tery. The  first  of  these  peculiarities  showed  itself 
early  in  life  when,  as  his  son  says,  he  was  reluctant 
to  settle  at  the  North  Church,  because  of  "  views  he 
had  of  greater  service  elsewhere."  l  In  other  words, 
the  parish  was  not  liberal ;  for  it  seems  "  the  deacons 
.  .  .  were  not  spirited  like  some  that  have  succeeded 
them ;  and  the  leaders  of  the  more  honest  people 
also,  were  men  of  a  low,  mean,  sordid  spirit.  .  .  .  For 
one  of  his  education,  and  erudition,  and  gentlemanly 
spirit,  and  conversation,  to  be  so  creepled  and  kept  in 
such  a  depressing  poverty !  —  In  these  distresses,  it 
was  to  little  purpose  for  him  to  make  his  complaint 
unto  man !  If  he  had,  it  would  have  been  basely  im- 
proved unto  his  disadvantage."  2  His  diary  teemed 
with  repinings.  "  Oh !  that  the  Lord  Jesus,  who 
hears  my  complaints  before  him,  would  either  give  an 
heart  to  my  people  to  look  after  my  comfortable  sub- 
sistance  among  them,  or  ...  remove  me  to  another 
people,  who  will  take  care  of  me,  that  so  I  may  be  in 
a  capacity  to  attend  his  work,  and  glorify  his  name  in 
my  generation." 3  However,  matters  mended  with 
him,  for  we  are  assured  that  "  the  Glorious  One  who 
knew  the  works,  and  the  service  and  the  patience  of 
this  tempted  man,  ordered  it,  that  several  gentlemen 
of  good  estate,  and  of  better  spirit,  were  become  the 

1  Parentator,  p.  25.  2  Idem,  p.  30.  8  Idem,  p.  33. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  431 

members  of  his  church ;  "  and  from  them  he  had 
"  such  filial  usages  ...  as  took  away  from  him  all 
room  of  repenting,  that  he  had  not  under  his  temp- 
tations prosecuted  a  removal  from  them."  1 

The  presidency  of  Harvard,  though  nominally  the 
highest  place  a  clergyman  could  hold  in  Massachu- 
setts, had  always  been  one  of  poverty  and  self-de- 
nial ;  for  the  salary  was  paid  by  the  legislature,  which, 
as  the  unfortunate  Dunster  had  found,  was  not  dis- 
posed to  be  generous.  Therefore,  although  Mr.  Ma- 
ther was  chosen  president  in  1685,  and  was  after- 
ward confirmed  as  rector  by  Andros,  he  was  far  too 
pious  to  be  led  again  into  those  temptations  from 
which  he  had  been  delivered  by  the  interposition  of 
the  Glorious  One ;  and  the  last  thing  he  proposed 
was  to  go  into  residence  and  give  up  his  congrega- 
tion. Besides,  he  was  engrossed  in  politics  and  went 
to  England  in  1688,  where  he  stayed  four  years. 
Meanwhile  the  real  control  of  education  was  left  in 
the  hands  of  Leverett,  who  was  appointed  tutor  in 
1686,  and  of  William  Brattle,  who  was  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  his  policy.  Among  the  many  powers 
usurped  by  the  old  trading  company  was  that  of  erect- 
ing corporations ;  hence  the  effect  of  the  judgment 
vacating  the  patent  had  been  to  annul  the  college 
charter  which  had  been  granted  by  the  General 
Court ; 2  and  although  the  institution  had  gone  on 
much  as  usual  after  the  Revolution,  its  position  was 
felt  to  be  precarious.  Such  being  the  situation  when 
1  Parentator,  pp.  34, 35.  2  23  May,  1650.  Mass.  Rec.  iii.  195. 


432  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

the  patriarch  came  home  in  1692  in  the  plenitude  of 
power,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  making  himself  the 
untrammelled  master  of  the  university,  and  he  forth- 
with caused  a  bill  to  be  introduced  into  the  legislature 
which  would  certainly  have  produced  that  result.1 
Nor  did  he  meet  with  any  serious  opposition  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, where  his  power  was,  for  the  moment,  well- 
nigh  supreme.  His  difficulty  lay  with  the  king,  since 
the  fixed  policy  of  Great  Britain  was  to  foster  Episco- 
palianism,  and  of  course  to  obtain  some  recognition 
for  that  sect  at  Cambridge.  And  so  it  came  to  pass 
that  all  the  advantage  he  reaped  by  the  enactment  of 
this  singular  law  was  a  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity  2 
which  he  gave  himself  between  the  approval  of  the 
bill  by  Phips  and  its  rejection  at  London.  The  com- 
pliment was  the  more  flattering,  however,  as  it  was  the 
first  ever  granted  in  New  England.  But  the  clouds 
were  fast  gathering  over  the  head  of  this  good  man. 
Like  many  another  benefactor  of  his  race,  he  was 
doomed  to  experience  the  pangs  inflicted  by  ingrati- 
tude, and  indeed  his  pain  was  so  acute  he  seldom  lost 
an  opportunity  of  giving  it  public  expression  ;  to  use 
his  own  words  of  some  years  later,  "  these  are  the  last 
lecture  sermons  ...  to  be  preached  by  me.  .  .  .  The 
ill  treatment  which  I  have  had  from  those  from  whom 
I  had  reason  to  have  expected  better,  have  discour- 
aged me  from  being  any  more  concerned  on  such  oc- 
casions." 3 

1  Province  Laws,  1692-93,  c.  10. 

2  Sept.  5, 1692.    Quincy's  History  of  Harvard,  i.  71. 

8  Address  to  Sermon,  The  Righteous  Man  a  Blessing,  1702. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  433 

Certainly  he  was  in  a  false  position ;  he  was  neces- 
sarily unappreciated  by  the  liberals,  and  he  had  not 
only  alienated  many  staunch  conservatives  by  his  ac- 
ceptance of  the  charter,  but  he  had  embittered  them 
by  rigorously  excluding  all  except  his  particular  fac- 
tion from  Phips's  council.  To  his  deep  chagrin,  the 
elections  of  1693  went  in  favor  of  many  of  these 
thankless  men,  and  his  discontent  soon  took  the  form 
of  an  intense  longing  to  go  abroad  in  some  official 
position  which  would  give  him  importance.  The  only 
possible  opening  seemed  to  be  to  get  himself  made 
agent  to  negotiate  a  charter  for  Harvard ;  and  there- 
fore he  soon  had  "  angelical "  suggestions  that  God 
needed  him  in  England  to  glorify  his  name. 

"  1693.  September  3d.  As  I  was  riding  to  preach 
at  Cambridge,  I  prayed  to  God,  —  begged  that  my 
labors  might  be  blessed  to  the  souls  of  the  students; 
at  the  which  I  was  much  melted.  Also  saying  to  the 
Lord,  that  some  workings  of  his  Providence  seemed 
to  intimate,  that  I  must  be  returned  to  England 
again ;  .  .  .  I  was  inexpressibly  melted,  and  that  for 
a  considerable  time,  and  a  stirring  suggestion,  that  to 
England  I  must  go.  In  this  there  was  something  ex- 
traordinary, either  divine  or  angelical." 

"  December  30th.  Meltings  before  the  Lord  this 
day  when  praying,  desiring  being  returned  to  England 
again,  there  to  do  service  to  his  name,  and  persuasions 
that  the  Lord  will  appear  therein." 

"  1694.  January  27th.  Prayers  and  supplications 
that  tidings  may  come  from  England,  that  may  be 


434  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

some  direction  to  me,  as  to  my  returning  thither  or 
otherwise,  as  shall  be  most  for  his  glory." 

"  March  13th.  This  morning  with  prayers  and 
tears  I  begged  of  God  that  I  might  hear  from  my 
friends  and  acquaintance  in  England  something  that 
should  encourage  and  comfort  me.  Such  tidings  are 
coming,  but  I  know  not  what  it  is.  God  has  heard 
me."  l 

His  craving  to  escape  from  the  country  was  in- 
creased by  the  nagging  of  the  legislature ;  for  so  early 
as  December,  1693,  the  representatives  passed  the  first 
of  a  long  series  of  resolves,  "  that  the  president  of 
Harvard  College  for  the  time  being  shall  reside  there, 
as  hath  been  accustomed  in  time  past."  2  Now  this 
was  precisely  what  the  Reverend  Doctor  was  deter- 
mined he  would  not  do ;  nor  could  he  resign  with- 
out losing  all  hope  of  his  agency ;  so  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  as  time  went  on  he  wrestled  with  the 
Deity. 

1698.  "  September  25th.  This  day  as  I  was  wres- 
tling with  the  Lord,  he  gave  me  glorious  and  heart- 
melting  persuasions,  that  he  has  work  for  me  to  do  in 
England,  for  the  glory  of  his  name.  My  soul  re- 
joiceth  in  the  Lord."  3 

Doubtless  his  trials  were  severe,  but  the  effect  upon 
his  temper  was  unfortunate.  He  brought  forward 
scheme  after  scheme,  and  the  corporation  was  made 

1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  475,  476,  App.  ix. 

2  Court  Rec.  vi.  316. 

8  History  of  Harvard,  i.  480,  App.  ix. 


HARVARD  COLLEGE.  435 

to  address  the  legislature,  and  then  the  legislature 
was  pestered  to  accede  to  the  prayer  of  the  corpora- 
tion, until  everybody  was  wrought  to  a  pitch  of  ner- 
vous irritation ;  he  himself  was  always  jotting  in  his 
Diary  what  he  had  on  foot,  mixed  with  his  hopes  and 
prayers. 

"  1696.  December  llth.  I  was  with  the  represen- 
tatives in  the  General  Court,  and  did  acquaint  them 
with  my  purpose  of  undertaking  a  voyage  for  Eng- 
land in  the  spring  (if  the  Lord  will),  in  order  to  the 
attainment  of  a  good  settlement  for  the  college." 

"  December  28th.  The  General  Court  have  done 
nothing  for  the  poor  college.  .  .  .  The  corporation 
are  desirous  that  I  should  go  to  England  on  the  col- 
lege's account." 

1696.  "  April  19th  (Sabbath.)  In  the  morning, 
as  I  was  praying  in  my  closet,  my  heart  was  marvel- 
lously melted  with  the  persuasion,  that  I  should  glo- 
rify Christ  in  England." 

"  1697.  June  7th.  Discourse  with  ministers  about 
the  college,  and  the  corporation  unanimously  desired 
me  to  take  a  voyage  for  England  on  the  college's 
account."  l 

But  of  what  the  senior  tutor  was  doing  with  the 
rising  generation  he  took  no  note  at  all.  His  attention 
was  probably  first  attracted  by  rumors  of  the  Brattle 
Church  revolt,  for  not  till  1697  was  he  able  to  divert 
his  thoughts  from  himself  long  enough  to  observe  that 
all  was  not  as  it  should  be  at  Cambridge.  Then,  at 
1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  476,  App.  ix. 


436  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

length,  he  made  an  effort  to  get  rid  of  Leverett  by 
striking  his  name  from  the  list  of  fellows  when  a  bill 
for  incorporation  was  brought  into  the  legislature ; 
but  this  crafty  politician  had  already  become  too 
strong  in  the  house  of  representatives,  of  which  he 
was  soon  after  made  speaker. 

Two  years  later,  however,  the  conservative  clergy 
made  a  determined  effort  and  prepared  a  bill  contain- 
ing a  religious  test,  which  they  supported  with  a  peti- 
tion praying  "  that,  in  the  charter  for  the  college,  our 
holy  religion  may  be  secured  to  us  and  unto  our  pos- 
terity, by  a  provision,  that  no  person  shall  be  chosen 
president,  or  fellow,  of  the  college,  but  such  as  declare 
their  adherence  unto  the  principles  of  reformation, 
which  were  espoused  and  intended  by  those  who  first 
settled  the  country  .  .  .  and  have  hitherto  been  the 
general  profession  of  New  England." 2  This  time 
they  narrowly  missed  success,  for  the  bill  passed  the 
houses,  but  was  vetoed  by  Lord  Bellomont. 

Hitherto  Cotton  Mather  had  shown  an  unfilial  lack 
of  interest  in  his  father's  ambition  to  serve  the  pub- 
lic; but  this  summer  he  also  began  to  have  assurances 
from  God.  One  cause  for  his  fervor  may  have  been 
the  death  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Morton,  who  was  conceded 
to  stand  next  in  succession  to  the  presidency,  and  he 
therefore  supposed  himself  to  be  sure  of  the  office 
should  a  vacancy  occur.8 

1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  87. 

2  Idem,  i.  99. 

8  Idem,  i.  102. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  437 

"  1699.  7th  d.  4th  m.  (June.)  The  General  Court 
has,  divers  times  of  late  years,  had  under  consider- 
ation the  matter  of  the  settlement  of  the  college, 
which  was  like  still  to  issue  in  a  voyage  of  my  father 
to  England,  and  the  matter  is  now  again  considered. 
I  have  made  much  prayer  about  it  many  and  many 
a  time.  Nevertheless,  I  never  could  have  my  mind 
raised  unto  any  particular  faith  about  it,  one  way  or 
another.  But  this  day,  as  I  was  (may  I  not  say)  in 
the  spirit,  it  was  in  a  powerful  manner  assured  me 
from  heaven,  that  my  father  should  one  day  be  car- 
ried into  England,  and  that  he  shall  there  glorify  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  ;  .  .  .  And  thou,  O  Mather  the 
younger,  shalt  live  to  see  this  accomplished  !  "  1 

"  16th  d.  5th  m.  (July.)  Being  full  of  distress 
in  my  spirit,  as  I  was  at  prayer  in  my  study  at  noon, 
it  was  told  me  from  heaven,  that  my  father  shall  be 
carried  from  me  unto  England,  and  that  my  opportu- 
nities to  glorify  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  will,  on  that 
occasion,  be  gloriously  accommodated." 

"  18th  d.  5th  m.  .  .  .  And  now  behold  a  most  unin- 
telligible dispensation !  At  this  very  time,  even  about 
noon,  instead  of  having  the  bill  for  the  college  en- 
acted, as  was  expected,  the  governor  plainly  rejected 
it,  because  of  a  provision  therein,  made  for  the  religion 
of  the  country." 

After  the  veto  the  patriarch  seems  to  have  got  the 
upper  hand  for  a  season,  and  to  have  made  some 
arrangement  by  which  he  evicted  his  adversary,  as  ap- 
1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  482,  483,  App.  x. 


438  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

pears  by  a  very  dissatisfied  letter  written  by  Leverett 
in  August,  1699  :  "As  soon  as  I  got  home  I  was  in- 
formed, that  Eev.  President  (I.  M.),  held  a  corpora- 
tion at  the  college  the  7th  inst.,  and  the  said  cor- 
poration, after  the  publication  of  the  new  settlement, 
made  choice  of  Mr.  Flynt  to  be  one  of  the  tutors  at 
college.  ...  I  have  not  the  late  act  for  incorpo- 
rating the  college  at  hand,  nor  have  I  seen  the  new 
temporary  settlement;  but  I  perceive,  that  all  the 
members  of  the  late  corporation  were  not  notified  to 
be  at  the  meeting.  I  can't  say  how  legal  these  late 
proceedings  are ;  but  it  is  wonderful,  that  an  estab- 
lishment for  so  short  a  time  as  till  October  next, 
should  be  made  use  of  so  soon  to  introduce  an  un- 
necessary addition  to  that  society."  l 

A  long  weary  year  passed,  during  which  Dr.  Ma- 
ther must  have  suffered  keenly  from  the  public  in- 
gratitude; still,  at  its  end  he  was  happy,  since  he 
felt  certain  of  being  rewarded  by  the  Lord  ;  for,  just 
as  the  earl's  administration  was  closing,  he  had  suc- 
ceeded by  unremitting  toil  in  so  adjusting  the  legis- 
lature as  to  think  the  spoil  his  own ;  when,  alas, 
suddenly,  without  warning,  in  the  most  distressing 
manner,  the  prize  slipped  into  Bellomont's  pocket. 
How  severely  his  faith  was  tried  appears  from  his 
son's  Diary. 

"  1700.     16th  d.  4th  mo.     (Lord's  Day.)     I  am 
going  to  relate  one  of  the  most  astonishing  things  that 
ever  befell  in  all  the  time  of  my  pilgrimage. 
1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  500,  App.  xvL 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  439 

"A  particular  faith  had  been  unaccountably  pro- 
duced in  my  father's  heart,  and  in  my  own,  that  God 
will  carry  him  unto  England,  and  there  give  him  a 
short  but  great  opportunity  to  glorify  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  before  his  entrance  into  the  heavenly  kingdom. 
There  appears  no  probability  of  my  father's  going 
thither  but  in  an  agency  to  obtain  a  charter  for  the 
college.  This  matter  having  been  for  several  years 
upon  the  very  point  of  being  carried  in  the  General 
Assembly,  hath  strangely  miscarried  when  it  hath 
come  to  the  birth.  It  is  now  again  before  the  As- 
sembly, in  circumstances  wherein  if  it  succeed  not,  it 
is  never  like  to  be  revived  and  resumed  any  more.  .  .  . 

"  But  the  matter  in  the  Assembly  being  likely  now 
to  come  unto  nothing,  I  was  in  this  day  in  extreme 
distress  of  spirit  concerning  it.  ...  After  I  had  fin- 
ished all  the  other  duties  of  this  day,  I  did  in  my  dis- 
tress cast  myself  prostrate  on  my  study  floor  before 
the  Lord.  ...  I  spread  before  him  the  consequences 
of  things,  and  the  present  posture  and  aspect  of  them, 
and,  having  told  the  Lord,  that  I  had  always  taken  a 
particular  faith  to  be  a  work  of  heaven  on  the  minds 
of  the  faithful,  but  if  it  should  prove  a  deceit  in  that 
remarkable  instance  which  was  now  the  cause  of  my 
agony,  I  should  be  cast  into  a  most  wonderful  confu- 
sion ;  I  then  begged  of  the  Lord,  that,  if  my  particular 
faith  about  my  father's  voyage  to  England  were  not 
a  delusion,  he  would  be  pleased  to  renew  it  upon  me. 
All  this  while  my  heart  had  the  coldness  of  a  stone 
upon  it,  and  the  straitness  that  is  to  be  expected  from 


440  HARVARD  COLLEGE. 

the  lone  exercise  of  reason.  But  now  all  on  the  sud- 
den I  felt  an  inexpressible  force  to  fall  on  my  mind, 
an  afflatus,  which  cannot  be  described  in  words ;  none 
knows  it  but  he  that  has  it.  .  .  .  It  was  told  me,  that 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  loved  my  father,  and  loved  me, 
and  that  he  took  delight  in  us,  as  in  two  of  his  faith- 
ful servants,  and  that  he  had  not  permitted  us  to  be 
deceived  in  our  particular  faith,  but  that  my  father 
should  be  carried  into  England,  and  there  glorify  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  before  his  passing  into  glory.  .  .  . 
"  Having  left  a  flood  of  tears  from  me,  by  these 
rages  from  the  invisible  world,  on  my  study  floor,  I 
rose  and  went  into  my  chair.  There  I  took  up  my 
Bible,  and  the  first  place  that  I  opened  was  at  Acts 
xxvii.  23-25,  '  There  stood  by  me  an  angel  of  God, 
whose  I  am,  and  whom  I  serve,  saying,  Fear  not,  thou 
must  be  brought  before  Caesar.'  ...  A  new  flood  of 
tears  gushed  from  my  flowing  eyes,  and  I  broke  out 
into  these  expressions.  '  What !  shall  my  father  yet 
appear  before  Ca3sar !  Has  an  angel  from  heaven  told 
me  so !  And  must  I  believe  what  has  been  told  me  ! 
Well  then,  it  shall  be  so !  It  shall  be  so ! '  " 

"  And  now  what  shall  I  say !  When  the  affair  of 
my  father's  agency  after  this  came  to  a  turning  point 
in  the  court,  it  strangely  miscarried!  All  came  to 
nothing !  Some  of  the  Tories  had  so  wrought  upon 
the  governor,  that,  though  he  had  first  moved  this 
matter,  and  had  given  us  both  directions  and  prom- 
ises about  it,  yet  he  now  (not  without  base  unhand- 
someness)  deferred  it.  The  lieutenant-governor,  who 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  441 

had  formerly  been  for  it,  now  (not  without  great 
ebullition  of  unaccountable  prejudice  and  ingratitude) 
appeared,  with  all  the  little  tricks  imaginable,  to  con- 
found it.  It  had  for  all  this  been  carried,  had  not 
some  of  the  council  been  inconveniently  called  off  and 
absent  But  now  the  whole  affair  of  the  college  was 
left  unto  the  management  of  the  Earl  of  Bellamont, 
so  that  all  expectation  of  a  voyage  for  my  father 
unto  England,  on  any  such  occasion,  is  utterly  at  an 
end."  ! 

During  all  these  years  the  legislature  had  been 
steadily  passing  resolutions  requiring  the  president  to 
go  into  residence ;  and  in  1698  they  went  so  far  as  to 
vote  him  the  liberal  salary,  for  that  age,  of  two  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  wait  upon 
him.  Judge  Sewall  describes  the  interview :  — 

"  Mr.  President  expostulated  with  Mr.  Speaker 
.  .  .  about  the  votes  being  alter'd  from  250  [£.  ?]." 
..."  We  urg'd  his  going  all  we  could ;  I  told  him 
of  his  birth  and  education  here ;  that  he  look'd  at 
work  rather  than  wages,  all  met  in  desiring  him,  .  .  . 
Objected  want  of  a  house,  bill  for  corporation  not 
pass'd  .  .  .  must  needs  preach  once  every  week,  which 
he  preferred  before  the  gold  and  silver  of  the  West- 
Indies.  I  told  him  would  preach  twice  aday  to  the 
students.  He  said  that  [exposition]  was  nothing  like 
preaching." 2  And  in  this  the  patriarch  spoke  the 
truth ;  for  if  there  was  anything  he  loved  more  than 

1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  484-486,  App.  x. 

2  Sewall's  Diary.    Mass.  Hist.  Col.  fifth  series,  v.  487. 


442  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

money  it  was  the  incense  of  adulation  which  steamed 
up  to  his  nostrils  from  a  great  congregation.  Of 
course  he  declined;  and  yet  this  importunity  pained 
the  good  man,  not  because  there  was  any  conflict  in 
his  mind  between  his  duty  to  a  cause  he  held  sacred 
and  his  own  interest,  but  because  it  was  "a  thing  con- 
trary to  the  faith  marvellously  wrought  into  my  soul, 
that  God  will  give  me  an  opportunity  to  serve  and 
glorify  Christ  in  England,  I  set  the  day  apart  to  cry 
to  heaven  about  it."  l 

There  were  limits,  however,  even  to  the  patience  of 
the  Massachusetts  Assembly  with  an  orthodox  divine ; 
and  no  sooner  was  the  question  of  the  agency  decided 
by  the  appointment  of  Bellomont,  than  it  addressed 
itself  resolutely  to  the  seemingly  hopeless  task  of  for- 
cing Dr.  Mather  to  settle  in  Cambridge  or  resign  his 
office.  On  the  10th  of  July,  1700,  they  voted  him 
two  hundred  and  twenty  pounds  a  year,  and  they 
appointed  a  committee  to  obtain  from  him  a  categori- 
cal answer.  This  time  he  thought  it  prudent  to  feign 
compliance ;  and  after  a  "  suitable  place  .  .  .  for  the 
reception  and  entertainment  of  the  president "  had 
been  prepared  at  the  public  expense,  he  moved  out  of 
town  and  stayed  till  the  17th  of  October,  when  he 
went  back  to  Boston,  and  wrote  to  tell  Stoughton  his 
health  was  suffering.  His  disingenuousness  seems  to 
have  given  Leverett  the  opportunity  for  which  he  had 
been  waiting ;  and  his  acting  as  chairman  of  a  com- 
mittee appointed  by  the  representatives  suggests  his 
1  History  of  Harvard,  vi.  481,  App.  ix. 


HARVARD  COLLEGE.  443 

having  forced  the  issue ;  it  was  resolved  that,  should 
Mr.  Mather  be  absent  from  the  college,  his  duties 
should  devolve  upon  Samuel  Willard,  the  vice-pres- 
ident ; l  and  in  March  the  committee  apparently  re- 
ported the  president's  house  to  be  in  good  condition. 
Stimulated  by  this  hint,  the  doctor  went  back  to  Cam- 
bridge and  stayed  a  little  more  than  three  months, 
when  he  wrote  a  characteristic  note  to  Stoughton,  who 
was  acting  governor.  "  I  promised  the  last  General 
Court  to  take  care  of  the  college  until  the  Commence- 
ment. Accordingly  I  have  been  residing  in  Cam- 
bridge these  three  months.  I  am  determined  (if  the 
Lord  will)  to  return  to  Boston  the  next  week,  and  no 
more  return  to  reside  in  Cambridge ;  for  it  is  not  rea- 
sonable to  desire  me  to  be  (as,  out  of  respect  to  the 
public  interest,  I  have  been  six  months  within  this 
twelve)  any  longer  absent  from  my  family.  ...  I 
do  therefore  earnestly  desire,  that  the  General  Court 
would  .  .  .  think  of  another  president.  ...  It  would 
be  fatal  to  the  interest  of  religion,  if  a  person  disaf- 
fected to  the  order  of  the  Gospel,  professed  and  prac- 
tised in  these  churches,  should  preside  over  this  soci- 
ety. I  know  the  General  Assembly,  out  of  their 
regard  to  the  interest  of  Christ,  will  take  care  to  pre- 
vent it."  2  Yet  though  he  himself  begged  the  legisla- 
ture to  select  his  successor,  in  his  inordinate  vanity 
he  did  not  dream  of  being  taken  at  his  word ;  so 
when  he  was  invited  to  meet  both  houses  in  the  coun- 

1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  Ill  ;  Court  Rec.  vii.  172,  175. 
a  History  of  Harvard,  i.  501,  App.  xviL 


444  HARVARD   COLLEGE, 

cil  chamDer  he  explained  with  perfect  cheerfulness 
how  "  he  was  now  removed  from  Cambridge  to  Bos- 
ton, and  .  .  .  did  not  think  fitt  to  continue  his  resi- 
dence there,  .  .  .  but,  if  the  court  thought  fit  to 
desire  he  should  continue  his  care  of  the  colledge  as 
formerly,  he  would  do  so."  l 

Increase  Mather  delighted  to  blazon  himself  as 
Christ's  foremost  champion  in  the  land.  He  pre- 
dicted, and  with  reason,  that  should  those  who  had 
been  already  designated  succeed  him  at  Harvard,  it 
would  be  fatal  to  that  cause  to  which  his  life  was 
vowed.  The  alternative  was  presented  of  serving 
himself  or  God,  and  to  him  it  seemed  unreasonable 
of  his  friends  to  expect  of  him  a  choice.  And  yet 
when,  as  was  his  wont,  he  would  describe  himself 
from  the  pulpit,  as  a  refulgent  beacon  blazing  before 
New  England,  he  would  use  such  words  as  these: 
"  Every  .  .  .  one  of  a  publick  spirit  .  .  .  will  deny 
himself  as  to  his  worldly  interests,  provided  he  may 
thereby  promove  the  welfare  of  his  people.  .  .  .  He 
will  not  only  deny  himself,  but  if  called  thereto,  will 
encounter  the  greatest  difficulties  and  dangers  for  the 
publicks  sake."  2 

The  man  had  presumed  too  far;  the  world  was 
wearying  of  him.  On  September  6,  1701,  the  gov- 
ernment was  transferred  to  Samuel  Willard,  the  vice- 
president,  and  Harvard  was  lost  forever.8 

1  Court  Records,  vii.  229. 

2  Sermon,  The  Publick  Spirited  Man,  pp.  7,  9. 
8  History  of  Harvard,  i.  116. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  445 

No  education  is  so  baleful  as  the  ecclesiastical,  be- 
cause it  breeds  the  belief  in  men  that  resistance  to 
their  will  is  not  only  a  wrong  to  their  country  and 
themselves,  but  a  sacrilege  toward  God.  The  Ma- 
thers were  now  to  give  an  illustration  of  the  degree  to 
which  the  theocratic  training  debauched  the  mind ; 
and  it  is  only  necessary  to  observe  that  Samuel  Sew- 
all,  who  tells  the  story,  was  educated  for  the  ministry, 
and  was  perhaps  as  staunch  a  conservative  as  there 
was  in  the  province. 

1701,  "  Oct£  20.  Mr.  Cotton  Mather  came  to  Mr. 
Wilkins's  shop,  and  there  talked  very  sharply  against 
me  as  if  I  had  used  his  father  worse  than  a  neger ; 
spake  so  loud  that  people  in  the  street  might  hear 
him.  ...  I  had  read  in  the  morn  Mr.  Dod's  saying ; 
Sanctified  afflictions  are  good  promotions.  I  found  it 
now  a  cordial." 

"  Oct-  9.  I  sent  Mr.  Increase  Mather  a  hanch  of 
very  good  venison ;  I  hope  in  that  I  did  not  treat  him 
as  a  negro." 

"Octote  22.  1701.  I,  with  Major  Walley  and 
Capt.  Sam1  Checkly,  speak  with  Mr.  Cotton  Mather 
at  Mr.  Wilkins's.  ...  I  told  him  of  his  book  of  the 
Law  of  Kindness  for  the  Tongue,  whether  this  were 
correspondent  with  that.  Whether  correspondent 
with  Christ's  rule : 

"  He  said,  having  spoken  to  me  before  there  was  no 
need  to  speak  to  me  again  ;  and  so  justified  his  revil- 
ing me  behind  my  back.  Charg'd  the  council  with 
lying,  hypocrisy,  tricks,  and  I  know  not  what  all.  I 


446  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

ask'd  him  if  it  were  done  with  that  meekness  as  it 
should ;  Answer'd,  Yes.  Charg'd  the  council  in  gen- 
eral, and  then  shew'd  my  share,  which  was  my  speech 
in  council;  viz.  If  Mr.  Mather  should  goe  to  Cam- 
bridge again  to  reside  there  with  a  resolution  not  to 
read  the  Scriptures,  and  expound  in  the  Hall:  I  fear 
the  example  of  it  will  do  more  hurt  than  his  going 
thither  will  doe  good.  This  speech  I  owned.  ...  I 
ask'd  him  if  I  should  supose  he  had  done  somthing 
amiss  in  his  church  as  an  officer ;  whether  it  would 
be  well  for  me  to  exclaim  against  him  in  the  street 
for  it." 

"  Thorsday  Oct?  23.  Mr.  Increase  Mather  said  at 
Mr.  Wilkins's,  If  I  am  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ, 
some  great  judgment  will  fall  on  Capt.  Sewall,  or  his 
family." 1 

Had  the  patriarch  been  capable  of  a  disinterested 
action,  for  the  sake  of  those  principles  he  professed  to 
love,  he  would  have  stopped  Willard's  presidency,  no 
matter  at  what  personal  cost,  for  he  knew  him  to  be 
no  better  than  a  liberal  in  disguise,  and  he  had  al- 
ready quarrelled  bitterly  with  him  in  1697  when  he 
was  trying  to  eject  Leverett.  Sewall  noted  on  "  NovT 
20.  ...  Mr.  Willard  told  me  of  the  falling  out  be- 
tween the  president  and  him  about  chusing  fellows 
last  Monday.  Mr.  Mather  has  sent  him  word,  he  will 
never  come  to  his  house  more  till  he  give  him  satisfac- 
tion." 2  But  they  had  in  reality  separated  years  be. 

i  Sewall's  Diary.    Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fifth  series,  vi.  43-45. 
a  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fifth  series,  v.  464. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  447 

fore ;  for  when,  in  the  witchcraft  terror,  Willard  was 
cried  out  upon,  and  had  to  look  a  shameful  death  in 
the  face,  he  learned  to  feel  that  the  men  who  were 
willing  to  risk  their  lives  to  save  him  were  by  no 
means  public  enemies.  And  so,  as  the  vice-president 
lived  in  Boston,  the  administration  of  the  college  was 
left  very  much  to  Leverett  and  the  Brattles,  who  were 
presently  reinstated. 

Joseph  Dudley  was  the  son  of  that  old  governor 
who  wrote  the  verses  about  the  cockatrice  to  be 
hatched  by  toleration,  yet  he  inherited  very  little  of 
his  father's  disposition.  He  was  bred  for  the  minis- 
try, and  as  the  career  did  not  attract  him,  he  turned  to 
politics,  in  which  he  made  a  brilliant  opening.  At  first 
he  was  the  hope  of  the  high  churchmen,  but  they  after- 
ward learned  to  hate  him  with  a  rancor  exceptional 
even  toward  their  enemies.  And  he  gave  them  only 
too  good  a  handle  against  him,  for  he  was  guilty  of 
the  error  of  selling  himself  without  reserve  to  the  An- 
dros  government.  At  the  Revolution  he  suffered  a 
long  imprisonment,  and  afterward  went  to  England, 
where  he  passed  most  of  William's  reign.  There  his 
ability  soon  brought  him  forward,  he  was  made  lieu- 
tenant-governor of  the  Isle  of  Wight,  was  returned  to 
Parliament,  and  at  last  appointed  governor  by  Queen 
Anne.  Though  Massachusetts  owes  a  deeper  debt  to 
few  of  her  chief  magistrates,  there  are  few  who  have 
found  scantier  praise  at  the  hands  of  her  historians. 
He  was,  it  is  true,  an  unscrupulous  politician  and 
courtier,  but  his  mind  was  broad  and  vigorous,  his 


448  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

policy  wise  and  liberal,  and  at  the  moment  of  his 
power  his  influence  was  of  inestimable  value. 

Among  his  other  gifts,  he  was  endowed  with  infi- 
nite tact,  and  wlhen  working  for  his  office  he  managed 
not  only  to  conciliate  the  Mathers,  but  even  to  induce 
the  son  to  write  a  letter  in  his  favor ;  and  so  when  he 
arrived  in  1702  they  were  both  sedulous  in  their  at- 
tentions in  the  expectation  of  controlling  him.  A 
month  had  not  passed,  however,  before  this  ominous 
entry  was  made  in  the  younger' s  diary  :  — 

"  June  16,  1702.  I  received  a  visit  from  Govern- 
our  Dudley.  ...  I  said  to  him  ...  I  should  be  con- 
tent, I  would  approve  it,  ...  if  any  one  should  say 
to  your  excellency,  '  By  no  means  let  any  people  have 
cause  to  say,  that  you  take  all  your  measures  from  the 
two  Mr.  Mathers.'  By  the  same  rule  I  may  say  with- 
out offence, '  By  no  means  let  any  people  say,  that  you 
go  by  no  measures  in  your  conduct,  but  Mr.  Byfield's 
and  Mr.  Leverett's.'  .  .  .  The  WRETCH  went  unto 
those  men  and  told  them,  that  I  had  advised  him  to 
be  no  ways  advised  by  them ;  and  inflamed  them  into 
an  implacable  rage  against  me."  l 

Leverett,  on  the  contrary,  now  reached  his  zenith  ; 
from  the  house  he  passed  into  the  council  and  became 
one  of  Dudley's  most  trusted  advisers.  The  Mathers 
were  no  match  for  these  two  men,  and  few  routs  have 
been  more  disastrous  than  theirs.  Lord  Bellomont's 
sudden  death  had  put  an  end  to  all  hope  of  obtaining 
a  charter  by  compromise  with  England,  and  no  fur. 
l  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  first  series,  iii.  137. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  449 

ther  action  had  been  taken,  when,  on  September  12, 
1707,  Willard  died.  On  the  28th  of  October  the  fel- 
lows met  and  chose  John  Leverett  president  of  Har- 
vard College ;  and  then  came  a  demonstration  which 
proved  not  only  Increase  Mather's  prescience,  when 
he  foretold  how  a  liberal  university  would  kill  a  dis- 
ciplined church,  but  which  shows  the  mighty  influence 
a  devoted  teacher  can  have  upon  his  age.  Thirty- 
nine  ministers  addressed  Governor  Dudley  thus :  — 

"  We  have  lately,  with  great  joy,  understood  the 
great  and  early  care  that  our  brethren,  who  have  the 
present  care  and  oversight  of  the  college  at  Cam- 
bridge, have  taken,  ...  by  their  unanimous  choice 
of  Mr.  John  Leverett,  ...  to  be  the  president  .  .  . 
Your  Excellency  personally  knows  Mr.  Leverett  so 
well,  that  we  shall  say  the  less  of  him.  However,  we 
cannot  but  give  this  testimony  of  our  great  affection 
to  and  esteem  for  him ;  that  we  are  abundantly  satis- 
fied ...  of  his  religion,  learning,  and  other  excellent 
accomplishments  for  that  eminent  service,  a  long  ex- 
perience of  which  we  had  while  he  was  senior  fellow 
of  that  house ;  for  that,  under  the  wise  and  faithful 
government  of  him,  and  the  Rev.  Mr.  Brattle,  of 
Cambridge,  the  greatest  part  of  the  now  rising  minis- 
try in  New  England  were  happily  educated ;  and  we 
hope  and  promise  ourselves,  through  the  blessing  of 
the  God  of  our  fathers,  to  see  religion  and  learning 
thrive  and  flourish  in  that  society,  under  Mr.  Lever- 
ett's  wise  conduct  and  influence,  as  much  as  ever  yet 
it  hath  done."  1 

1  History  of  Harvard,  i.  504,  App.  xx. 


450  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

His  salary  was  only  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
a  year ;  but  the  man  worked  for  love  of  a  great  cause, 
and  did  not  stop  to  haggle.  Nor  were  he  and  Dud- 
ley of  the  temper  to  leave  a  task  half  done.  Un- 
doubtedly at  the  governor's  instigation,  a  resolve  was 
introduced  into  the  Assembly  reviving  the  Act  of  1650 
by  which  the  university  had  been  incorporated,  and  it 
is  by  the  sanction  of  this  lawless  and  masterly  feat  of 
statesmanship  that  Harvard  has  been  administered  for 
almost  two  hundred  years. 

Sewall  tells  how  Dudley  went  out  in  state  to  inau- 
gurate his  friend.  "  The  govr  prepar'd  a  Latin  speech 
for  instalment  of  the  president.  Then  took  the  presi- 
dent by  the  hand  and  led  him  down  into  the  hall ;  .  .  . 
The  govr  sat  with  his  back  against  a  noble  fire.  .  .  . 
Then  the  govr  read  his  speech  .  .  .  and  mov'd  the 
books  in  token  of  their  delivery.  Then  president 
made  a  short  Latin  speech,  importing  the  difficulties 
discouraging,  and  yet  that  he  did  accept :  .  .  .  Clos'd 
with  the  hymn  to  the  Trinity.  Had  a  very  good  diner 
upon  3  or  4  tables.  .  .  .  Got  home  very  well.  Laus 
Deo."  l 

Nor  did  Dudley  fail  to  provide  the  new  executive 
with  fit  support.  By  the  old  law  he  had  revived  the 
corporation  was  reduced  to  seven  ;  of  this  board  Lev- 
erett  himself  was  one,  and  on  the  day  he  took  his  office 
both  the  Brattles  and  Pemberton  were  also  appointed. 
And  more  than  this,  when,  a  few  years  later,  Pem- 
berton died,  the  arch-rebel,  Benjamin  Colman,  was 
1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fifth  series,  vi.  209. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  451 

chosen  in  his  place.  The  liberal  triumph  was  complete, 
and  in  looking  back  through  the  vista  of  the  past, 
there  are  few  pages  of  our  history  more  strongly 
stamped  with  the  native  energy  of  the  New  England 
mind  than  this  brilliant  capture  of  Harvard,  by  whicl 
the  ancient  cradle  of  bigotry  and  superstition  was 
made  the  home  of  American  liberal  thought.  As  foi 
the  Mathers,  when  they  found  themselves  beaten  in 
fair  fight,  they  conceived  a  revenge  so  dastardly  that 
Pemberton  declared  with  much  emotion  he  would  hum- 
ble them,  were  he  governor,  though  it  cost  him  his 
head.  Being  unable  longer  to  withstand  Dudley  by 
honorable  means,  they  tried  to  blast  him  by  charging 
him  with  felony.  Their  letters  are  too  long  to  be 
reproduced  in  full ;  but  their  purport  may  be  guessed 
by  the  extracts  given,  and  to  this  day  they  remain 
choice  gems  of  theocratic  morality. 

SIR,  That  I  have  had  a  singular  respect  for  you,  the 
Lord  knows ;  but  that  since  your  arrival  to  the  gov- 
ernment, my  charitable  expectations  have  been  greatly 
disappointed,  I  may  not  deny.  .  .  . 

1st.  I  am  afraid  you  cannot  clear  yourself  from  the 
guilt  of  bribery  and  unrighteousness.  .  .  . 

2d.  I  am  afraid  that  you  have  not  been  true  to  the 
interest  of  your  country,  as  God  (considering  his  mar- 
vellous dispensations  towards  you)  and  his  people 
have  expected  from  you.  .  .  . 

3d.  I  am  afraid  that  you  cannot  clear  yourself  from 
the  guilt  of  much  hypocrisy  and  falseness  in  the  affair 
of  the  college.  .  .  . 


452  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

4th.  I  am  afraid  that  the  guilt  of  innocent  blood  is 
still  crying  in  the  ears  of  the  Lord  against  you.  I 
mean  the  blood  of  Leister  and  Milburn.  My  Lord 
Bellamont  said  to  me,  that  he  was  one  of  the  commit- 
tee of  Parliament  who  examined  the  matter ;  and  that 
those  men  were  not  only  murdered,  but  barbarously 
murdered.  .  .  . 

5th.  I  am  afraid  that  the  Lord  is  offended  with  you, 
in  that  you  ordinarily  forsake  the  worship  of  God  in 
the  holy  church  to  which  you  are  related,  in  the  after- 
noon on  the  Lord's  day,  and  after  the  publick  exercise, 
spend  the  whole  time  with  some  persons  reputed  very 
ungodly  men.  I  am  sure  your  father  did  not  so.  ... 
Would  you  choose  to  be  with  them  or  such,  as  they  are 
in  another  world,  unto  which  you  are  hastening?  .  .  . 
I  am  under  pressures  of  conscience  to  bear  a  publick 
testimony  without  respect  of  persons.  ...  I  trust  in 
Christ  that  when  I  am  gone,  I  shall  obtain  a  good 
report  of  my  having  been  faithful  before  him.  To  his 
mercy  I  commend  you,  and  remain  in  him, 
Yours  to  serve, 

I.   MATHER.1 

BOSTON,  January  20,  1707-8. 
To  the  Governour. 

BOSTON,  Jan.  20, 1707-8. 

SIR,     There  have  appeared   such   things   in  your 

conduct,  that  a  just  concern  for  the  welfare  of  your 

excellency   seems   to   render  it   necessary,    that    you 

should  be  faithfully  advised  of  them.  .  .  .  You  will 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  first  series,  iii.  126. 


HARVARD   COLLEGE.  453 

give  me  leave  to  write  nothing,  but  in  a  style,  whereof 
an  ignorant  mob,  to  whom  (as  well  as  the  General 
Assembly)  you  think  fit  to  communicate  what  frag- 
ments you  please  of  my  letters,  must  be  competent 
judges.  I  must  proceed  accordingly.  ...  I  weakly 
believed  that  the  wicked  and  horrid  things  done  be- 
fore the  righteous  Revolution,  had  been  heartily  re- 
pented of ;  and  that  the  rueful  business  at  New  York, 
which  many  illustriotis  persons  .  .  .  called  a  barbarous 
murder,  .  .  .  had  been  considered  with  such  a  repent- 
ance, as  might  save  you  and  your  family  from  any  fur- 
ther storms  of  heaven  for  the  revenging  of  it.  ...  Sir, 
your  snare  has  been  that  thing,  the  hatred  whereof  is 
most  expressly  required  of  the  ruler,  namely  COVET- 
OUSNESS.  When  a  governour  shall  make  his  govern- 
ment more  an  engine  to  enrich  himself,  than  to  be- 
friend his  country,  and  shall  by  the  unhallowed  hun- 
ger of  riches  be  prevailed  withal  to  do  many  wrong, 
base,  dishonourable  things  ;  it  is  a  covetousness  which 
will  shut  out  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  and  some- 
times the  loss  of  a  government  on  earth  also  is  the 
punishment  of  it.  ...  The  main  channel  of  that  cov- 
etousness has  been  the  reign  of  bribery,  which  you, 
sir,  have  set  up  in  the  land,  where  it  was  hardly 
known,  till  you  brought  it  in  fashion.  .  .  .  And  there 
lie  affidavits  before  the  queen  and  council,  which  affirm 
that  you  have  been  guilty  of  it  in  very  many  instances. 
I  do  also  know  that  you  have.  .  .  . 

Sir,  you  are  sensible  that  there  is  a  judgment  to 
come,  wherein  the  glorious  Lord  will  demand,  how  far 


454  HARVARD   COLLEGE. 

you  aimed  at  serving  hi  in  in  your  government ;  .  .  .  how 
far  you  did  in  your  government  encourage  those  that 
had  most  of  his  image  upon  them,  or  place  your  eyes 
on  the  wicked  of  the  land.  Your  age  and  health,  as 
well  as  other  circumstances,  greatly  invite  you,  sir,  to 
entertain  awful  thoughts  of  this  matter,  and  solicit 
the  divine  mercy  through  the  only  sacrifice.  .  .  .  Yet 
if  the  troubles  you  brought  on  yourself  should  pro- 
cure your  abdication  and  recess  unto  a  more  private 
condition,  and  your  present  parasites  forsake  you,  as 
you  may  be  sure  they  will,  I  should  think  it  my  duty 
to  do  you  all  the  good  offices  imaginable. 

Finally,  I  can  forgive  and  forget  injuries ;  and  I 
hope  I  am  somewhat  ready  for  sunset ;  the  more  for 
having  discharged  the  duty  of  this  letter.  .  .  . 
Your  humble  and  faithful  servant, 

COTTON  MATHER.1 

But  these  venomous  priests  had  tried  their  fangs 
upon  a  resolute  and  an  able  man.  Dudley  shook 
them  off  like  vermin. 

GENTLEMEN,  Yours  of  the  20th  instant  I  received  ; 
and  the  contents,  both  as  to  the  matter  and  manner, 
astonish  me  to  the  last  degree.  I  must  think  you 
have  extremely  forgot  your  own  station,  as  well  as  my 
character ;  otherwise  it  had  been  impossible  to  have 
made  such  an  open  breach  upon  all  the  laws  of  de- 
cency, honour,  justice,  and  Christianity,  as  you  have 
1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  first  series,  iii.  128. 


HARVARD  COLLEGE.  455 

done  in  treating  me  with  an  air  of  superiority  and 
contempt,  which  would  have  been  greatly  culpable 
towards  a  Christian  of  the  lowest  order,  and  is  insuf- 
ferably rude  toward  one  whom  divine  Providence  has 
honoured  with  the  character  of  your  governour.  .  .  . 

Why,  gentlemen,  have  you  been  so  long  silent?  and 
suffered  sin  to  lie  upon  me  years  after  years?  You 
cannot  pretend  any  new  information  as  to  the  main 
of  your  charge ;  for  you  have  privately  given  your 
tongues  a  loose  upon  these  heads,  I  am  well  assured, 
when  you  thought  you  could  serve  yourselves  by  ex- 
posing me.  Surely  murder,  robberies,  and  other  such 
flaming  immoralities  were  as  reprovable  then  as 
now.  .  .  . 

Really,  gentlemen,  conscience  and  religion  are 
things  too  solemn,  venerable,  or  sacred,  to  be  played 
with,  or  made  a  covering  for  actions  so  disagreeable  to 
the  gospel,  as  these  your  endeavours  to  expose  me 
and  my  most  faithful  services  to  contempt ;  nay,  to 
unhinge  the  government.  .  .  . 

I  desire  you  will  keep  your  station,  and  let  fifty  or 
sixty  good  ministers,  your  equals  in  the  province,  have 
a  share  in  the  government  of  the  college,  and  advise 
thereabouts  as  well  as  yourselves,  and  I  hope  all  will 
be  well.  ... 

I  am  your  humble  servant, 

J.  DUDLEY. 
To  the  Reverend  Doctors  Mathers.1 

1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  first  series,  iii.  135. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE   LAWTEES. 

IN  the  age  of  sacred  caste  the  priest  is  likewise  the 
law-maker  and  the  judge,  and  as  succeeding  genera- 
tions of  ecclesiastics  slowly  spin  the  intricate  web  of 
their  ceremonial  code,  they  fail  not  to  teach  the  peo- 
ple that  their  holy  ordinances  were  received  of  yore 
from  divine  lips  by  some  great  prophet  This  process 
is  beautifully  exemplified  in  the  Old  Testament : 
though  the  complicated  ritualism  of  Leviticus  was 
always  reverently  attributed  to  Moses,  it  was  evi- 
dently the  work  of  a  much  later  period  ;  for  the  pres- 
ent purpose,  however,  its  date  is  immaterial,  it  suf- 
fices to  follow  the  account  the  scribes  thought  fit  to 
give  in  Kings. 

Long  after  the  time  of  Solomon,  Josiah  one  day 
sent  to  inquire  about  some  repairs  then  being  made 
at  the  Temple,  when  suddenly,  "  Hilkiah  the  high 
priest  said  unto  Shaphan  the  scribe,  I  have  found  the 
book  of  the  law  in  the  house  of  the  Lord."  And  he 
gave  the  book  to  Shaphan. 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  king  had  heard  the 
words  of  the  book  ...  he  rent  his  clothes."  And  he 
was  greatly  alarmed  for  fear  of  the  wrath  of  the  Lord, 
because  their  fathers  had  not  hearkened  unto  the 


THE  LAWYERS.  457 

words  of  this  book ;  as  indeed  it  was  impossible  they 
should,  since  they  knew  nothing  about  it.  So,  to  find 
out  what  was  best  to  be  done,  he  sent  Hilkiah  and 
others  to  Huldah  the  prophetess,  who  told  them  that 
the  wrath  of  the  Lord  was  indeed  kindled,  and  he 
would  bring  evil  unto  the  land ;  but,  because  Josiah's 
heart  had  been  tender,  and  he  had  humbled  himself, 
and  rent  his  clothes,  and  wept  when  he  had  heard 
what  was  spoken,  he  should  be  gathered  into  his  grave 
in  peace,  and  his  eyes  should  not  see  the  evil.1 

Such  is  an  example  of  the  process  whereby  a  com- 
pilation of  canonical  statutes  is  brought  into  practical 
operation  by  adroitly  working  upon  the  superstitious 
fears  of  the  civil  magistrate  ;  at  an  earlier  period  the 
priests  administer  justice  in  person. 

Eli  judged  Israel  forty  years,  and  Samuel  went  on 
circuit  all  the  days  of  his  life ;  "  and  he  went  from 
year  to  year  in  circuit  to  Bethel,  and  Gilgal,  and 
Mizpeh,  and  judged  Israel  in  all  those  places."  2  But, 
sooner  or  later,  the  time  must  come  when  a  soldier  is 
absolutely  necessary,  both  to  fight  foreign  enemies 
and  to  enforce  obedience  at  home ;  and  then  some 
chief  is  set  up  whom  the  clergy  think  they  can  con- 
trol :  thus  Samuel  anointed  Saul  to  be  captain  over 
the  Lord's  inheritance.3  So  long  as  the  king  is  sub- 
missive to  authority  all  goes  well,  but  any  insubordi- 
nation is  promptly  punished  ;  and  this  was  the  fate  of 
Saul.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  was  in  difficulty  and 
Samuel  happened  to  be  away,  he  was  so  rash  as  to 

1  2  Kings  xxii.  2  1  Samuel  iv.,  vii.          8  1  Samuel  x. 


458  THE  LAWYERS. 

sacrifice  a  burnt  offering  himself ;  his  presumption 
offended  the  prophet,  who  forthwith  declared  that  his 
kingdom  should  not  continue.1  After  this  the  rela- 
tions between  them  went  from  bad  to  worse,  and  it 
was  not  long  before  the  priest  began  to  intrigue  with 
David,  whom  he  presently  anointed.2  The  end  of  it 
was  that  Saul  was  defeated  in  battle,  as  Samuel's 
ghost  foretold,  for  not  obeying  "  the  voice  of  the 
Lord ;  "  and  after  a  struggle  between  the  houses  of 
Saul  and  David,  all  the  elders  of  Israel  went  to 
Hebron,  where  David  made  a  league  with  them,  and 
in  return  they  anointed  him  king.3 

Thenceforward,  or  from  the  moment  when  a  layman 
assumed  control  of  the  temporal  power,  the  Jewish 
chronicles  teem  with  the  sins  and  the  disasters  of  those 
rulers  who  did  not  walk  in  the  way  of  their  fathers, 
or  who,  in  other  words,  were  restive  under  ecclesiasti- 
cal dictation. 

So  long  as  this  period  lasts,  during  which  the  sov- 
ereign is  forced  to  obey  the  behests  of  the  priesthood, 
an  arbitrary  despotism  is  inevitable ;  nor  can  the 
foundation  of  equal  justice  and  civil  liberty  be  laid 
until  first  the  military,  and  then  the  legal  profession, 
has  become  distinct  and  emancipated  from  clerical 
control,  and  jurisprudence  has  grown  into  the  recog- 
nized calling  of  a  special  class. 

These  phenomena  tend  to  explain  the  peculiar  and 
original  direction  taken  by  legal  thought  in  Massa- 
chusetts, for  they  throw  light  upon  the  influences  un- 
1  1  Samuel  xiiL  2  Idem,  xvi.  8  2  Samuel  v. 


THE  LAWYERS.  459 

der  which  her  first  generation  of  lawyers  grew  up, 
whose  destiny  it  was  to  impress  upon  her  institutions 
the  form  they  have  ever  since  retained. 

The  traditions  inherited  from  the  theocracy  were 
vicious  in  the  extreme.  For  ten  years  after  the  settle- 
ment the  clergy  and  their  aristocratic  allies  stubbornly 
refused  either  to  recognize  the  common  law  or  to  en- 
act a  code ;  and  when  at  length  further  resistance  to 
the  demands  of  the  freemen  was  impossible,  the  Rev. 
Nathaniel  Ward  drew  up  "  The  Body  of  Liberties," 
which,  though  it  perhaps  sufficiently  defined  civil  obli- 
gations, contained  this  extraordinary  provision  con- 
cerning crimes :  — 

"No  mans  life  shall  be  taken  away,  no  mans 
honour  or  good  name  shall  be  stayned,  no  mans  per- 
son shall  be  arested,  restrayned,  banished,  dismem- 
bred,  nor  any  wayes  punished,  .  .  .  unlesse  it  be  by 
virtue  or  equitie  of  some  expresse  law  of  the  country 
waranting  the  same,  ...  or  in  case  of  the  defect  of 
a  law  in  any  parteculer  case  by  the  word  of  God. 
And  in  capitall  cases,  or  in  cases  concerning  dismem- 
bring  or  banishment  according  to  that  word  to  be 
judged  by  the  Generall  Court."  l 

The  whole  of  the  subtle  policy,  whereof  this  legis- 
lation forms  a  part,  well  repays  attentive  study.  The 
relation  of  the  church  to  the  state  was  not  unlike  that 
of  Samuel  toward  Saul,  for  no  public  man  could  with- 
stand its  attack,  as  was  demonstrated  by  the  fate  of 
Vane.  Much  of  the  story  has  been  told  already  in 
1  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  third  series,  viii.  216. 


460  THE  LAWYERS. 

describing  the  process  whereby  the  clergy  acquired  a 
substantial  ascendency  over  the  executive  and  legisla- 
ture, through  their  command  of  the  constituencies, 
which  it  was  the  labor  of  their  lives  to  fill  with  loyal 
retainers.  Nothing  therefore  remains  to  be  done  but 
to  trace  the  means  they  employed  to  invest  their  order 
with  judicial  attributes. 

From  the  outset  lawyers  were  excluded  from  prac- 
tice, so  the  magistrates  were  nothing  but  common 
politicians  who  were  nominated  by  the  priests ;  thus 
the  bench  was  not  only  filled  with  trusty  partisans 
without  professional  training  or  instincts,  but  also, 
as  they  were  elected  annually,  they  were  practically 
removable  at  pleasure  should  they  by  any  chance 
rebel.  Upon  these  points  there  is  abundant  evidence : 
"  The  government  was  first  by  way  of  charter,  which 
was  chiefly  managed  by  the  preachers,  who  by  their 
power  with  the  people  made  all  the  magistrates  & 
kept  them  so  intirely  under  obedience,  that  they  durst 
not  act  without  them.  Soe  that  whensoever  anything 
strange  or  unusuall  was  brought  before  them,  they 
would  not  determine  the  matter  without  consulting 
the  preachers,  for  should  any  bee  soe  sturdy  as  to  pre- 
sume to  act  of  himself  without  takeing  advice  &  di- 
rections, he  might  bee  sure  of  it,  his  magistracy  ended 
with  the  year.  He  could  bee  noe  magistrate  for  them, 
that  was  not  approved  and  recommended  from  the 
pulpit,  &  he  could  expect  little  recommendation  who 
was  not  the  preacher's  most  humble  servant.  Soe 
they  who  treated,  caressed  &  presented  the  preachers 


THE  LAWYERS.  461 

most,  were  the  rulers  &  magistrates  among  the  peo- 
ple." l 

From  the  decisions  of  such  a  judiciary  the  only 
appeal  lay  to  a  popular  assembly,  which  could  always 
be  manipulated.  Obviously,  ecclesiastical  supervision 
over  the  ordinary  course  of  litigation  was  amply  pro- 
vided for.  The  adjudication  of  the  more  important 
controversies  was  reserved;  for  it  was  expressly  en- 
acted that  doubtful  questions  and  the  higher  crimes 
should  be  judged  according  to  the  Word  of  God. 
This  master-stroke  resembled  Hilkiah's  when  he  im- 
posed his  book  on  Josiah;  for  on  no  point  of  disci- 
pline were  the  ministers  so  emphatic  as  on  the  sacred 
and  absolute  nature  of  their  prerogative  to  interpret 
the  Scriptures ;  nor  did  they  fail  to  impress  upon  the 
people  that  it  was  a  sin  akin  to  sacrilege  for  the  laity 
to  dispute  their  exposition  of  the  Bible. 

The  deduction  to  be  drawn  from  these  premises  is 
plain.  The  assembled  elders,  acting  in  their  advisory 
capacity,  constituted  a  supreme  tribunal  of  last  resort, 
wholly  superior  to  carnal  precedent,  and  capable  of 
evolving  whatsoever  decrees  they  deemed  expedient 
from  the  depths  of  their  consciousness.2  The  result 
exemplifies  the  precision  with  which  a  cause  operating 
upon  the  human  mind  is  followed  by  its  consequence ; 
and  the  action  of  this  resistless  force  is  painfully 
apparent  in  every  state  prosecution  under  the  Puri- 

1  An  Account  of  the  Colonies,  etc.,  Lambeth  MSS.     Perry's 
Historical  Collections,  iii.  48. 

2  See  Gorton's  case,  Winthrop,  ii.  146. 


462  THE  LAWYERS. 

tan  Commonwealth,  from  Wheelwright's  to  Margaret 
Brewster's.  The  absorption  of  sacerdotal,  political, 
and  juridical  functions  by  a  single  class  produces  an 
arbitrary  despotism ;  and  before  judges  greedy  of 
earthly  dominion,  flushed  by  the  sense  of  power,  unre- 
strained by  rules  of  law  or  evidence,  and  unopposed 
by  a  resolute  and  courageous  bar,  trials  must  become 
little  more  than  conventional  forms,  precursors  of  pre- 
determined punishments. 

After  a  period  of  about  half  a  century  these  social 
conditions  underwent  radical  change,  but  traditions 
remained  that  deeply  affected  the  subsequent  devel- 
opment of  the  people,  and  produced  a  marked  bent  of 
thought  in  the  lawyers  who  afterward  wrote  the  Con- 
stitution. 

At  the  accession  of  William  III.  great  progress  had 
been  made  in  the  science  of  colonial  government ; 
charters  had  been  granted  to  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island  in  1662  and  1663,  which,  except  in  the  survival 
of  the  ancient  and  meaningless  jargon  of  incorpora- 
tion, had  a  decidedly  modern  form.  By  these  regular 
local  representative  governments  were  established  with 
full  power  of  legislation,  save  in  so  far  as  limited  by 
clauses  requiring  conformity  with  the  law  of  England ; 
and  they  served  their  purpose  well,  for  both  were  kept 
in  force  many  years  after  the  Revolution,  Rhode  Isl- 
and's not  having  been  superseded  until  1843. 

The  stubborn  selfishness  of  the  theocracy  led  to  the 
adoption  of  a  less  liberal  policy  toward  Massachusetts. 
The  nomination  of  the  executive  officers  was  retained 


THE  LAWYERS.  463 

by  the  crown,  and  the  governor  was  given  very  sub- 
stantial means  of  maintaining  his  authority ;  he  could 
reject  the  councillors  elected  by  the  Assembly ;  he  ap- 
pointed the  judges  and  sheriffs  with  the  advice  of  this 
body,  whose  composition  he  could  thus  in  a  measure 
control ;  he  had  a  veto,  and  was  commander-in-chief. 
Appeals  to  the  king  in  council  were  also  provided 
for  in  personal  actions  where  the  matter  in  difference 
exceeded  three  hundred  pounds. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  legislature  made  all  appro- 
priations, including  those  for  the  salaries  of  the  gov- 
ernor and  judges,  and  was  only  limited  in  its  capacity 
to  enact  statutes  by  the  clause  invariably  inserted  in 
these  patents. 

This,  therefore,  is  the  precise  moment  when  the 
modern  theory  of  constitutional  limitations  first  ap- 
pears defined ;  distinct  from  the  ancient  corporate 
precedents.  By  a  combination  of  circumstances  also, 
a  sufficient  sanction  for  the  written  law  happened  to 
be  provided,  thus  making  the  conception  complete, 
for  the  tribunal  of  last  resort  was  an  English  court 
sustained  by  ample  physical  force ;  nevertheless  the 
great  principle  of  coordinate  departments  of  govern- 
ment was  not  yet  understood,  and  substantial  relief 
against  legislative  usurpation  had  to  be  sought  in  a 
foreign  jurisdiction.  To  lawyers  of  our  own  time  it 
is  self-evident  that  the  restrictions  of  an  organic  code 
must  be  futile  unless  they  are  upheld  by  a  judiciary 
not  only  secure  in  tenure  and  pay,  but  removed  as  far 
as  may  be  from  partisan  passions.  This  truth,  how- 


464  THE  LAWYERS. 

ever,  remained  to  be  discovered  amid  the  abuses  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  for  the  position  of  the  pro- 
vincial bench  was  unsatisfactory  in  the  last  degree. 
The  justices  held  their  commissions  at  the  king's 
pleasure,  but  their  salaries  were  at  the  mercy  of  the 
deputies ;  they  were  therefore  subject  to  the  caprice 
of  antagonistic  masters.  Nor  was  this  the  worst,  for 
the  charter  did  not  isolate  the  judicial  office.  Under 
the  theocracy  the  policy  of  the  clergy  had  been  to  sup- 
press the  study  of  law  in  order  to  concentrate  their 
own  power ;  hence  no  training  was  thought  necessary 
for  the  magistrate,  no  politician  was  considered  in- 
competent to  fill  the  judgment-seat  because  of  igno- 
rance of  his  duty,  and  the  office-hunter,  having  got 
his  place  by  influence,  was  deemed  at  liberty  to 
use  it  as  a  point  of  vantage,  from  whence  to  prose- 
cute his  chosen  career.  For  example,  the  first  chief 
justice  was  Stoughton,  who  was  appointed  by  Phips, 
probably  at  the  instigation  of  Increase  Mather.  As 
he  was  bred  for  the  church,  he  could  have  had  no 
knowledge  to  recommend  him,  and  his  peculiar  quali- 
fications were  doubtless  family  connections  and  a  nar- 
row and  bigoted  mind ;  he  was  also  lieutenant  -  gov- 
ernor, a  member  of  the  council,  and  part  of  the  time 
commander-in-chief. 

Thomas  Danforth  was  the  senior  associate,  who  is 
described  by  Sewall  as  "  a  very  good  husbandman, 
and  a  very  good  Christian,  and  a  good  councillor ; " 
but  his  reputation  as  a  jurist  rested  upon  a  spotless 
record,  he  having  been  the  most  uncompromising  of 
the  high  church  managers. 


THE  LAWYERS.  465 

Wait  Winthrop  was  a  soldier,  and  was  not  only  in 
the  council,  but  so  active  in  public  life  that  years 
afterward,  while  on  the  bench,  he  was  set  up  as  a  can- 
didate for  governor  in  opposition  to  Dudley. 

John  Richards  was  a  merchant,  who  had  been  sent 
to  England  as  agent  in  1681,  just  when  the  troubles 
came  to  a  crisis  ;  but  the  labors  by  which  he  won  the 
ermine  seem  plain  enough,  for  he  was  bail  for  Increase 
Mather  when  sued  by  Randolph,  and  was  appointed 
by  Phips.  Samuel  Sewall  was  brought  up  to  preach, 
took  to  politics  on  the  conservative  side,  and  was  reg- 
ularly chosen  to  the  council. 

This  motley  crew,  who  formed  the  first  superior 
court,  had  but  one  trait  in  common :  they  belonged  to 
the  clique  who  controlled  the  patronage ;  and  as  it  be- 
gan so  it  continued  to  the  end,  for  Hutchinson,  the 
last  chief  justice  but  one,  was  a  merchant ;  yet  he  was 
also  probate  judge,  lieutenant-governor,  councillor,  and 
leader  of  the  Tories.  In  so  intelligent  a  community 
such  prostitution  of  the  judicial  office  would  have  been 
impossible  but  for  the  pernicious  tradition  that  the 
civil  magistrate  needed  no  special  training  to  perform 
his  duty,  and  was  to  take  his  law  from  those  who  ex- 
pounded the  Word  of  God. 

And  there  was  another  inheritance,  if  possible,  more 
baleful  still.  The  legislature,  under  the  Puritan 
Commonwealth,  had  been  the  court  of  last  resort,  and 
it  was  by  no  means  forward  to  abandon  its  preroga- 
tive. It  was  consequently  always  ready  to  listen  to 
the  complaints  of  suitors  who  thought  themselves 


466  THE  LAWYERS. 

aggrieved  by  the  decisions  of  the  regular  tribunals, 
and  it  was  fond  of  altering  the  course  of  justice 
to  make  it  conform  to  what  the  members  were 
pleased  to  call  equity.  This  abuse  finally  took  such 
proportions  that  Hutchinson  remonstrated  vigorously 
in  a  speech  to  the  houses  in  1772. 

"  Much  time  is  usually  spent  ...  in  considering 
petitions  for  new  trials  at  law,  for  leave  to  sell  the 
real  estates  of  persons  deceased,  by  their  executors, 
or  administrators,  and  the  real  estates  of  minors,  by 
their  guardians.  All  such  private  business  is  prop- 
erly cognizable  by  the  established  judicatories.  .  .  . 
A  legislative  body  ...  is  extremely  improper  for 
such  decisions.  The  polity  of  the  English  govern- 
ment seldom  admits  of  the  exercise  of  this  executive 
and  judiciary  power  by  the  legislature,  and  I  know  of 
nothing  special  in  the  government  of  this  province,  to 
give  countenance  to  it."  l 

The  disposition  to  interfere  in  what  did  not  con- 
cern them  was  probably  aggravated  by  the  presence 
of  judicial  politicians  in  the  popular  assemblies,  who 
seem  to  have  been  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  of 
intriguing  to  procure  legislation  to  affect  the  litigation 
before  them.  But  the  simplest  way  to  illustrate  the 
working  of  the  system  in  all  its  bearings  will  be  to 
give  a  history  of  a  celebrated  case  finally  taken  on  ap- 
peal to  the  Privy  Council.  The  cause  arose  in  Con- 
necticut, it  is  true,  but  the  social  condition  of  the  two 
colonies  was  so  similar  as  to  make  this  circumstance 
immaterial. 

*  Mass.  State  Papers,  1765-1775,  p.  314. 


THE  LAWYERS.  467 

Wait  Winthrop,1  grandson  of  the  first  John  Win- 
throp,  died  intestate  in  1717,  leaving  two  children, 
John,  of  New  London,  and  Anne,  wife  of  Thomas 
Lechmere,  of  Boston.  The  father  intended  his  son 
should  take  the  land  according  to  the  family  tradi- 
tion, and  in  pursuance  of  this  purpose  he  put  him  in 
actual  possession  of  the  Connecticut  property  in  1711 ; 
but  he  neglected  to  make  a  will. 

By  the  common  law  of  England  real  estate  de- 
scended to  the  eldest  son  of  him  who  was  last  seised ; 
but  in  1699  the  Assembly  had  passed  a  statute  of  dis- 
tribution, copied  from  a  Massachusetts  act,  which 
directed  the  probate  court,  after  payment  of  debts, 
to  make  a  "  distribution  of  ...  all  the  residue  .  .  . 
of  the  real  and  personal  estate  by  equal  portions  to 
and  among  the  children  .  .  .  except  the  eldest  son 
.  .  .  who  shall  have  two  shares." 

Here,  then,  at  the  threshold,  the  constitutional 
question  had  to  be  met,  as  to  whether  the  colonial  en- 
actment was  not  in  conflict  with  the  restriction  in  the 
charter,  and  therefore  void.  Winthrop  took  out  let- 
ters of  administration,  and  Lechmere  became  one  of 
the  sureties  on  his  bond.  There  was  no  disagree- 
ment about  the  personalty,  but  the  son's  claim  to  the 
land  was  disputed,  though  suit  was  not  brought  against 
him  till  1723. 

The  litigation  began  in  Boston,  but  was  soon  trans- 
ferred to  New  London,  where,  in  July,  1724,  Lech- 

1  This  report  of  Winthrop  v.  Lechmere  is  taken  from  a  MS. 
brief  in  the  possession  of  Hon.  R.  C.  Winthrop. 


468  THE  LAWYERS. 

mere  petitioned  for  an  account.  Winthrop  forthwith 
exhibited  an  inventory  of  the  chattels,  and  moved  that 
it  should  be  accepted  as  final ;  but  the  judge  of  pro- 
bate declined  so  to  rule.  Then  Lechmere  prayed  for 
leave  to  sue  on  the  bond  in  the  name  of  the  judge. 
His  prayer  was  granted,  and  he  presently  began  no 
less  than  six  actions  in  different  forms. 

Much  time  was  consumed  in  disposing  of  technical- 
ities, but  at  length  two  test  cases  were  brought  before 
the  superior  court.  One,  being  in  substance  an  action 
on  the  bond,  was  tried  on  the  general  issue,  and 
the  verdict  was  for  the  defendant.  The  other  was  a 
writ  of  partition,  wherein  Anne  was  described  as  co- 
heir with  her  brother.  It  was  argued  on  demurrer  to 
the  declaration,  and  the  defendant  again  prevailed. 

Thus,  so  far  as  judicial  decision  could  determine 
private  rights  to  property,  Winthrop  had  established 
his  title ;  but  he  represented  the  unpopular  side  in  the 
controversy,  and  his  troubles  were  just  beginning. 
Christopher  Christophers  was  the  judge  of  probate,  he 
was  also  a  justice  of  the  superior  court,  and  a  member 
of  the  Assembly,  of  which  body  the  plaintiff's  counsel 
was  speaker.  In  April,  1725,  when  Lechmere  had 
finally  exhausted  his  legal  remedies,  he  addressed  a 
petition  to  the  legislature,  where  he  had  this  strong 
support,  and  which  was  not  to  meet  till  May,  stating 
the  impossibility  of  obtaining  relief  by  ordinary  means, 
and  asking  to  have  one  of  the  judgments  set  aside 
and  a  new  trial  ordered,  in  such  form  as  to  enable  him 
to  maintain  his  writ  of  partition,  notwithstanding  th" 


THE  LAWYERS.  469 

solemn  decision  against  him  by  the  court  of  last  resort. 
The  defendant  in  vain  protested  that  no  error  was 
alleged,  no  new  evidence  produced,  nor  any  matter  of 
equity  advanced  which  might  justify  interference :  the 
Assembly  had  determined  to  sustain  the  statute  of 
distributions,  and  it  accordingly  resolved  that  in  cases 
of  this  description  relief  ought  to  be  given  in  probate 
by  means  of  a  new.  grant  of  administration,  to  be  ex- 
ecuted according  to  the  terms  of  the  act. 

Winthrop  was  much  alarmed,  and  with  reason,  for 
he  saw  at  once  the  intention  of  the  legislature  was  to 
induce  the  judges  to  assume  an  unprecedented  juris- 
diction ;  he  therefore  again  offered  his  account,  which 
Christophers  rejected,  and  he  appealed  from  the  de- 
cision. Lechmere  also  applied  for  administration  on 
behalf  of  his  wife ;  and  upon  his  prayer  being  denied, 
pending  a  final  disposition  of  Winthrop's  cause,  he  too 
went  up.  In  March,  1725-6,  final  judgment  was  ren- 
dered, the  judges  holding  that  both  real  and  personal 
property  should  be  inventoried.  Winthrop  thereupon 
entered  his  appeal  to  the  Privy  Council,  whose  juris- 
diction was  peremptorily  denied. 

From  what  afterward  took  place,  the  inference  is 
that  Christophers  shrank  from  assuming  alone  so  great 
a  responsibility  as  now  devolved  upon  him,  and  per- 
suaded his  brethren  to  share  it  with  him ;  for  the 
superior  court  proceeded  to  issue  letters  of  administra- 
tion to  Lechmere,  and  took  his  bond,  drawn  to  them- 
selves personally,  for  the  faithful  performance  of  his 
trust.  This  was  a  most  high-handed  usurpation,  for 


470  THE  LAWYERS. 

the  function  of  the  higher  tribunal  in  these  matters 
was  altogether  appellate,  it  having  nothing  to  do  with 
such  executive  business  as  taking  bonds,  which  was 
the  province  of  the  judge  of  probate. 

However  this  may  have  been,  progress  was  thence- 
forward rapid.  In  April  Lechmere  produced  a  sched- 
ule of  debts,  which  have  at  this  day  a  somewhat  sus- 
picious look,  and  when  they  were  allowed,  he  peti- 
tioned the  legislature  for  leave  to  sell  land  to  pay 
them.  Winthrop  appeared  and  presented  a  remon- 
strance, which  "  the  Assembly,  observing  the  common 
course  of  justice,  and  the  law  of  the  colony  being  by 
application  to  the  said  Assembly,  when  the  judgments 
of  the  superior  courts  are  grievous  to  any  person  .  .  . 
dismissed,"  and  immediately  passed  an  act  authorizing 
the  sale,  and  making  the  administrators'  deed  good  to 
convey  a  title. 

Then  Winthrop  was  so  incautious  as  to  make  a  final 
effort :  he  filed  a  protest  and  caution  against  any  illegal 
interference  with  his  property  pending  his  appeal,  de- 
claring the  action  already  taken  to  be  contrary  to  the 
common  and  statute  law  of  England,  and  to  the  tenor 
of  the  charter. 

The  Assembly  being  of  the  opinion  that  this  protest 
*'  had  in  it  a  great  show  of  contempt,"  caused  Win- 
throp to  be  arrested  and  brought  to  the  bar ;  there  he 
not  only  defended  his  representations  as  reasonable, 
but  avowed  his  determination  to  lay  all  these  proceed- 
ings before  the  king  in  council.  "  This  was  treated  as 
an  insolent  contemptuous  and  disorderly  behaviour" 


THE  LAWYERS.  471 

in  the  prisoner,  "  as  declaring  himself  coram  non  ju- 
dice,  and  putting  himself  on  a  par  with  them,  and  im- 
peaching their  authoritys  and  the  charter ;  and  his  said 
protest  was  declared  to  be  full  of  reflections,  and  to 
terrific  so  far  as  in  him  lay  all  the  authorities  estab- 
lished by  the  charter."  So  they  imprisoned  him  three 
days  and  fined  him  twenty  pounds  for  his  contemptu- 
ous words. 

This  leading  case  was  afterward  elaborately  argued 
in  London,  and  judgment  was  entered  for  Winthrop, 
upon  the  ground  that  the  statute  of  distribution  was 
in  conflict  with  the  charter  and  therefore  void ;  but 
as  Connecticut  resolutely  refused  to  abandon  its  own 
policy,  the  utmost  confusion  prevailed  for  seventeen 
years  regarding  the  settlement  of  estates.  During  all 
this  time  the  local  government  made  unremitting  ef- 
forts to  obtain  relief,  and  seems  to  have  used  pecuni- 
ary as  well  as  legal  arguments  to  effect  its  purpose ;  at 
all  events,  it  finally  secured  a  majority  in  the  Privy 
Council,  who  reversed  Winthrop  v.  Lechmere,in  Clark 
v.  Tousey.  The  same  question  was  raised  in  Massa- 
chusetts in  1737,  in  Phillips  v.  Savage,  but  enough  in- 
fluence was  brought  to  bear  to  prevent  an  adverse  de- 
cision.1 A  possible  distinction  between  the  two  cases 
also  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  Massachusetts  act  had  re- 
ceived the  royal  assent. 

The  history  of  this  litigation  is  interesting,  not  only 
as  illustrating  the  defects  in  provincial  justice,  but  as 

1  Conn.  Coll.  Rec.  vii.  191,  note  ;  Proc.  Mass.  Hist.  Soc. 
1860-G2,  *r>.  Cl-::,  133-171. 


472  THE  LAWYERS. 

showing  the  process  by  which  the  conception  of  con- 
stitutional limitations  became  rooted  in  the  minds  of 
the  first  generation  of  lawyers ;  and  in  point  of  fact, 
they  were  so  thoroughly  impregnated  with  the  theory 
as  to  incline  to  carry  it  to  unwarrantable  lengths. 
For  example,  so  justly  eminent  a  counsel  as  James 
Otis,  in  his  great  argument  on  the  Writs  of  Assist- 
ance in  1761,  solemnly  maintained  the  utterly  unten- 
able proposition  that  an  act  of  Parliament  "  against 
the  Constitution  is  void :  an  act  against  natural  equity 
is  void :  and  if  an  act  of  Parliament  should  be  made, 
in  the  very  words  of  this  petition,  it  would  be  void."  1 
While  so  sound  a  man,  otherwise,  as  John  Adams  wrote, 
in  1776,  to  Mr.  Justice  Gushing:  "You  have  my 
hearty  concurrence  in  telling  the  jury  the  nullity  of 
acts  of  Parliament.  ...  I  am  determined  to  die  of 
that  opinion,  let  the  jus  gladii  say  what  it  will."  2 

On  looking  back  at  Massachusetts  as  she  was  in  the 
year  1700,  permeated  with  the  evil  theocratic  tradi- 
tions, without  judges,  teachers,  or  books,  the  mind 
can  hardly  fail  to  be  impressed  with  the  unconquer- 
able energy  which  produced  great  jurists  from  such  a 
soil ;  and  yet  in  1725  Jeremiah  Gridley  graduated  from 
Harvard,  who  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  been  the 
progenitor  of  a  famous  race ;  for  long  before  the  Rev- 
olution, men  like  Prat,  Otis,  and  John  Adams  could 
well  have  held  their  own  before  any  court  of  Common 
Law  that  ever  sat.  Such  powerful  counsel  naturally 

1  Quincy's  Reports,  p.  474. 

2  Works  ofJ.  Adams,  ix.  390. 


THE  LAWYERS.  473 

felt  a  contempt  for  the  ignorant  politicians  who  for 
the  most  part  presided  over  them,  which  they  took 
little  pains  to  hide.  Ruggles  one  day  had  an  aged 
female  witness  who  could  find  no  chair  and  com- 
plained to  him  of  exhaustion.  He  told  her  to  go  and 
sit  on  the  bench.  His  honor,  in  some  irritation,  call- 
ing him  to  account,  he  replied :  "I  really  thought 
that  place  was  made  for  old  women."  Hutchinson 
says  of  himself :  "  It  was  an  eyesore  to  some  of  the 
bar  to  have  a  person  at  the  head  of  the  law  who  had 
not  been  bred  to  it."  But  he  explains  with  perfect 
simplicity  how  his  occupation  as  chief  justice  "en- 
gaged his  attention,  and  he  applied  his  intervals  to 
reading  the  law."  1 

The  British  supremacy  closed  with  the  evacuation 
of  Boston,  and  the  colony  then  became  an  independ- 
ent state ;  yet  in  that  singularly  homogeneous  com- 
munity, which  had  always  been  taught  to  regard  their 
royal  patents  as  the  bulwark  of  their  liberties,  no  one 
seems  to  have  seriously  thought  it  possible  to  dispense 
with  a  written  instrument  to  serve  as  the  basis  of  the 
social  organization.  Accordingly,  in  1779,  the  legisla- 
ture called  a  convention  to  draft  a  Constitution ;  and  it 
was  the  good  fortune  of  the  lawyers,  who  were  chosen 
as  delegates,  to  have  an  opportunity,  not  only  to  cor- 
rect those  abuses  from  which  the  administration  of 
justice  had  so  long  suffered,  but  to  carry  into  practical 
operation  their  favorite  theory,  of  the  limitation  of 
legislative  power  by  the  intervention  of  the  courts. 
1  Diary  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Hutchinson,  p.  66. 


474  THE  LAWYERS. 

The  course  pursued  was  precisely  what  might  have 
been  predicted  of  the  representatives  of  a  progressive 
yet  sagacious  people.  Taking  the  old  charter  as  the 
foundation  whereon  to  build,  they  made  only  such  al- 
terations as  their  past  experience  had  shown  them  to 
be  necessary;  they  adopted  no  fanciful  schemes,  nor 
did  they  lightly  depart  from  a  system  with  which  they 
were  acquainted;  and  their  almost  servile  fidelity  to 
their  precedent, wherever  it  could  be  followed,  is  shown 
by  the  following  extracts  relating  to  the  legislative 
and  executive  departments. 

CHARTER. 

And  we  doe  further  for  vs  our  heires  and  successors 
give  and  grant  to  the  said  governor  and  the  Great  and 
Generall  Court  or  Assembly  of  our  said  province  or 
territory  for  the  time  being  full  power  and  authority 
from  time  to  time  to  make  ordaine  and  establish  all 
manner  of  wholsome  and  reasonable  orders  laws  stat- 
utes and  ordinances  directions  and  instructions  either 
with  penalties  or  without  (soe  as  the  same  be  not  re- 
pugnant or  contrary  to  the  lawes  of  this  our  realme  of 
England)  as  they  shall  judge  to  be  for  the  good  and 
welfare  of  our  said  province  or  territory  and  for  the 
gouernment  and  ordering  thereof  and  of  the  people 
inhabiting  or  who  shall  inhabit  the  same  and  for  the 
necessary  support  and  defence  of  the  government 
thereof. 


THE  LAWYERS.  475 

CONSTITUTION. 

And  further,  full  power  and  authority  are  hereby 
given  and  granted  to  the  said  General  Court,  from 
time  to  time,  to  make,  ordain,  and  establish,  all  man- 
ner of  wholesome  and  reasonable  orders,  laws,  statutes, 
and  ordinances,  directions  and  instructions,  either  with 
penalties  or  without ;  so  as  the  same  be  not  repugnant 
or  contrary  to  this  constitution,  as  they  shall  judge  to 
be  for  the  good  and  welfare  of  this  commonwealth, 
and  for  the  government  and  ordering  thereof,  and  of 
the  subjects  of  the  same,  and  for  the  necessary  support 
and  defence  of  the  government  thereof. 

CHARTER. 

The  governour  of  our  said  province  for  the  time  be- 
ing shall  have  authority  from  time  to  time  at  his  dis- 
cretion to  assemble  and  call  together  the  councillors  or 
assistants  of  our  said  province  for  the  time  being  and 
that  the  said  governour  with  the  said  assistants  or 
councillors  or  seaven  of  them  at  the  least  shall  and 
may  from  time  to  time  hold  and  keep  a  councill  for 
the  ordering  and  directing  the  affaires  of  our  said 
province. 

CONSTITUTION. 

The  governour  shall  have  authority,  from  time  to 
time  at  his  discretion,  to  assemble  and  call  together 
the  councillors  of  this  commonwealth  for  the  time  be- 
ing ;  and  the  governour,  with  the  said  councillors,  or 
five  of  them  at  least,  shall,  and  may,  from  time  to 


476  THE  LAWYERS. 

time,  hold  and  keep  a  council,  for  the  ordering  and 
directing  the  affairs  of  the  commonwealth,  agreeably 
to  the  constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  land. 

The  clause  concerning  the  council  is  curious  as  an 
instance  of  the  survival  of  an  antiquated  form.  In 
the  province  the  body  had  a  use,  for  it  was  a  regular 
upper  chamber ;  but  when,  in  1779,  a  senate  was 
added,  it  became  an  anomalous  and  meaningless  third 
house ;  yet  it  is  still  regularly  elected,  though  its  in- 
utility  is  obvious.  So  long  ago  as  1814  John  Adams 
had  become  very  tired  of  it ;  he  then  wrote  :  "  This 
constitution,  which  existed  in  my  handwriting,  made 
the  governor  annually  elective,  gave  him  the  executive 
power,  shackled  with  a  council,  that  I  now  wish  was 
annihilated.1'  l 

On  the  other  hand,  the  changes  made  are  even  more 
interesting, as  an  example  of  the  evolution  of  institu- 
tions. The  antique  document  was  simplified  by  an 
orderly  arrangement  and  division  into  sections;  the 
obsolete  jargon  of  incorporation  was  eliminated,  which 
had  come  down  from  the  mediaeval  guilds ;  in  the  dis- 
pute with  England  the  want  of  a  bill  of  rights  had 
been  severely  felt,  so  one  was  prefixed ;  and  then  the 
convention,  probably  out  of  regard  to  symmetry, 
blotted  their  otherwise  admirable  work  by  creating 
an  unnecessary  senate.  But  viewed  as  a  whole,  the 
grand  original  conception  contained  in  this  instru- 
ment, making  it  loom  up  a  landmark  in  history,  is  the 
i  Works  of  J.  Adams,  vi.  465. 


THE  LAWYERS.  477 

theory  of  the  three  coordinate  departments  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  a  democratic  commonwealth,  which  has 
ever  since  been  received  as  the  corner-stone  of  Amer- 
ican constitutional  jurisprudence. 

Though  this  assertion  may  at  first  sight  seem  too 
sweeping,  it  is  borne  out  by  the  facts.  During  the 
first  sessions  of  the  Continental  Congress  no  question 
was  more  pressing  than  the  reorganization  of  the  col- 
onies should  they  renounce  their  allegiance  to  the 
crown,  nor  was  there  one  in  regard  to  which  the  ma- 
jority of  the  delegates  were  more  at  sea.  From  their 
peculiar  education  the  New  Englanders  were  excep- 
tions to  the  general  rule,  and  John  Adams  in  particu- 
lar had  thought  out  the  problem  in  all  its  details. 
His  conversation  so  impressed  some  of  his  colleagues 
that  he  was  asked  to  put  his  views  in  a  popular  form. 
His  first  attempt  was  a  short  letter  to  Richard  Henry 
Lee,  in  November,  1775,  in  which  he  starts  with  this 
proposition  as  fundamental :  "  A  legislative,  an  execu- 
tive, and  a  judicial  power  comprehend  the  whole  of 
what  is  meant  and  understood  by  government.  It  is 
by  balancing  each  of  these  powers  against  the  other 
two,  that  the  efforts  in  human  nature  towards  tyranny 
can  alone  be  checked  and  restrained,  and  any  degree 
of  freedom  preserved  in  the  constitution."  l 

His  next  tract,  written  in  1776  at  the  request  of 
Wythe  of  Virginia,  was  printed  and  widely  circulated, 
and  similar  communications  were  sent  in  reply  to  ap- 
plications from  New  Jersey,  North  Carolina,  and  pos« 
l  Works  of  J.  Adams,  iv.  186. 


478  THE  LAWYERS. 

sibly  other  States.  The  effect  of  this  discussion  is  ap- 
parent in  all  of  the  ten  constitutions  afterward  drawn, 
with  the  exception  of  Pennsylvania's,  which  was  a  fail- 
ure ;  but  none  of  them  passed  beyond  the  tentative  or 
embryonic  stage.  It  therefore  remained  for  Massa- 
chusetts to  present  the  model,  which  in  its  main  fea- 
tures has  not  yet  been  superseded. 

A  first  attempt  was  deservedly  rejected  by  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  work  was  not  done  until  1779;  but  the 
men  who  then  met  in  convention  at  Cambridge  knew 
precisely  what  they  meant  to  do.  Though  the  execu- 
tive and  the  legislature  were  a  direct  inheritance,  need- 
ing but  little  change,  a  deep  line  was  drawn  between 
the  three  departments,  and  the  theory  of  the  coordi- 
nate judiciary  was  first  brought  to  its  maturity  within 
the  jurisdiction  where  it  had  been  born.  To  attain 
this  cherished  object  was  the  chief  labor  of  the  dele- 
gates, for  to  the  supreme  court  was  to  be  intrusted  the 
dangerous  task  of  grappling  with  the  representative 
chambers  and  enforcing  the  popular  charter.  There- 
fore they  made  the  tenure  of  the  judges  permanent; 
they  secured  their  pay ;  to  obtain  impartiality  they  ex- 
cluded them  from  political  office ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  they  confined  the  legislature  within  its  proper 
sphere,  to  the  end  that  the  government  they  created 
might  be  one  of  laws  and  not  of  men. 

The  experiment  has  proved  one  of  those  memorable 
triumphs  which  mark  an  era.  Not  only  has  the  great 
conception  of  New  England  been  accepted  as  the  fun- 
damental  principle  of  the  Federal  Union,  but  it  has 


THE  LAWYERS.  479 

been  adopted  by  every  separate  State ;  and  more  than 
this,  during  the  one  hundred  and  six  years  since  the 
people  of  our  Commonwealth  wrote  their  Constitution, 
they  have  had  as  large  a  measure  of  liberty  and  safety 
under  the  law  as  men  have  ever  known  on  earth. 
There  is  no  jurisdiction  in  the  world  where  justice  has 
been  purer  or  more  impartial ;  nor,  probably,  has  there 
ever  been  a  community,  of  equal  numbers,  which  has 
produced  more  numerous  or  more  splendid  specimens 
of  juridical  and  forensic  talent. 

When  freed  from  the  incubus  of  the  ecclesiastical 
oligarchy  the  range  of  intellectual  activity  expanded, 
and  in  1780  Massachusetts  may  be  said,  without  ex- 
aggeration, to  have  led  the  liberal  movement  of  the 
world ;  for  not  only  had  she  won  almost  in  perfection 
the  three  chief  prizes  of  modern  civilization,  liberty 
of  speech,  toleration,  and  equality  before  the  law ;  but 
she  had  succeeded  in  formulating  those  constitutional 
doctrines  by  which,  during  the  nineteenth  century, 
popular  self-government  has  reached  the  highest  ef- 
ficiency it  has  ever  yet  attained. 

A  single  example,  however,  must  suffice  to  show 
what  the  rise  of  the  class  of  lawyers  had  done  for  in- 
dividual security  and  liberty  in  that  comparatively 
short  interval  of  ninety  years. 

Theocratic  justice  has  been  described ;  the  trials  of 
Wheelwright,  and  of  Anne  Hutchinson,  of  Childe,  of 
Holmes,  and  of  Christison  have  been  related ;  and  also 
the  horrors  perpetrated  before  that  ghastly  tribunal 
of  untrained  bigots,  which  condemned  the  miserable 


480  THE  LAWYERS. 

witches  undefended  and  unheard.1  For  the  honor  of 
our  Common  wealth  let  the  tale  be  told  of  a  state  pros- 
ecution after  her  bar  was  formed. 

In  1768  the  British  Ministry  saw  fit  to  occupy  Bcs- 
ton  with  a  couple  of  regiments,  a  force  large  enough 
to  irritate,  but  too  small  to  overawe,  the  town.  From 
the  outset  bad  feeling  prevailed  between  the  citizens 
and  the  soldiers,  but  as  the  time  went  on  the  exasper- 
ation increased,  and  early  in  1770  that  intense  passion 
began  to  glow  which  precedes  the  outbreak  of  civil 
war.  Yet  though  there  were  daily  brawls,  no  blood 
was  shed  until  the  night  of  the  5th  of  March,  when  a 
rabble  gathered  about  the  sentry  at  the  custom-house 
in  State  Street.  He  became  frightened  and  called 
for  help,  Captain  Preston  turned  out  the  guard,  the 
mob  pelted  them,  and  they  fired  on  the  people  with- 
out warning.  A  terrific  outbreak  was  averted  by  a 
species  of  miracle,  but  the  troops  had  to  be  with- 
drawn, and  Preston  and  his  men  were  surrendered 
and  indicted  for  murder. 

John  Adams,  who  was  a  liberal,  heart  and  soul,  had 
just  come  into  leading  practice.  His  young  friend 

1  In  England,  throughout  the  eighteenth  century,  counsel  were 
allowed  to  speak  in  criminal  trials,  in  cases  of  treason  and  misde- 
meanor only.  Nor  is  the  conduct  of  Massachusetts  in  regard  to 
witches  peculiar.  Parallel  atrocities  might  probably  be  adduced 
from  the  history  of  every  European  nation,  even  though  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  courts  were  more  regular  than  was  that  of  the 
Commission  of  Phips.  The  relation  of  the  priest  to  the  sorcerer 
is  a  most  interesting  phenomenon  of  social  development;  but  it 
would  require  a  treatise  by  itself. 


THE  LAWYERS.  481 

Josiah  Quincy  was  even  more  deeply  pledged  to  the 
popular  cause.  On  the  morning  after  the  massacre, 
Preston,  doubtless  at  Hutchinson's  suggestion,  sent 
Adains  a  guinea  as  a  retaining  fee,  which,  though  it 
seemed  his  utter  ruin  to  accept,  he  did  not  dream  of 
refusing.  What  Quincy  went  through  may  be  guessed 
from  his  correspondence  with  his  father. 

BRAINTREE,  March  22, 1770. 

MY  DEAR  SON,  I  am  under  great  affliction  at 
hearing  the  bitterest  reproaches  uttered  against  you, 
for  having  become  an  advocate  for  those  criminals 
who  are  charged  with  the  murder  of  their  fellow-citi- 
zens. Good  God !  Is  it  possible  ?  I  will  not  be- 
lieve it. 

Just  before  I  returned  home  from  Boston,  I  knew, 
indeed,  that  on  the  day  those  criminals  were  commit- 
ted to  prison,  a  sergeant  had  inquired  for  you  at  your 
brother's  house ;  but  I  had  no  apprehension  that  it 
was  possible  an  application  would  be  made  to  you  to 
undertake  their  defence.  Since  then  I  have  been  told 
that  you  have  actually  engaged  for  Captain  Preston ; 
and  I  have  heard  the  severest  reflections  made  upon 
the  occasion,  by  men  who  had  just  before  manifested 
the  highest  esteem  for  you,  as  one  destined  to  be  a 
saviour  of  your  country.  I  must  own  to  you,  it  has 
filled  the  bosom  of  your  aged  and  infirm  parent  with 
anxiety  and  distress,  lest  it  should  not  only  prove 
true,  but  destructive  of  your  reputation  and  interest ; 


482  THE  LAWYERS. 

and  I  repeat,  I  will  not  believe  it,  unless  it  be  con- 
firmed by  your  own  mouth,  or  under  your  own  hand. 
Your  anxious  and  distressed  parent, 

JOSIAH  QUINCY. 

BOSTON,  March  26, 1770. 

HONOURED  SIR,  I  have  little  leisure,  and  less  in- 
clination, either  to  know  or  to  take  notice  of  those 
ignorant  slanderers  who  have  dared  to  utter  their 
"  bitter  reproaches  "  in  your  hearing  against  me,  for 
having  become  an  advocate  for  criminals  charged  with 
murder.  .  .  .  Before  pouring  their  reproaches  into 
the  ear  of  the  aged  and  infirm,  if  they  had  been 
friends,  they  would  have  surely  spared  a  little  reflec- 
tion on  the  nature  of  an  attorney's  oath  and  duty.  .  .  . 

Let  such  be  told,  sir,  that  these  criminals,  charged 
with  murder,  are  not  yet  legally  proved  guilty,  and 
therefore,  however  criminal,  are  entitled,  by  the  laws 
of  God  and  man,  to  all  legal  counsel  and  aid;  that 
my  duty  as  a  man  obliged  me  to  undertake ;  that  my 
duty  as  a  lawyer  strengthened  the  obligation.  .  .  . 
This  and  much  more  might  be  told  with  great  truth  ; 
and  I  dare  affirm  that  you  and  this  whole  people  will 
one  day  rejoice  that  I  became  an  advocate  for  the 
aforesaid  "criminals,"  charged  with  the  murder  of 
our  fellow-citizens. 

I  never  harboured  the  expectation,  nor  any  great  de- 
sire, that  all  men  should  speak  well  of  me.  To  enquire 
my  duty,  and  to  do  it,  is  my  aim.  .  .  .  When  a  plan 
of  conduct  is  formed  with  an  honest  deliberation, 


THE  LAWYERS.  483 

neither  murmuring,  slander,  nor  reproaches  move.  .  .  . 
There  are  honest  men  in  all  sects,  —  I  wish  their  ap- 
probation ;  —  there  are  wicked  bigots  in  all  parties,  — 
I  abhor  them. 

I  am,  truly  and  affectionately,  your  son, 

JOSIAH   QUINCY,   JR.1 

Many  of  the  most  respected  citizens  asserted  and 
believed  that  the  soldiers  had  fired  with  premeditated 
malice,  for  the  purpose  of  revenge;  and  popular  in- 
dignation was  so  deep  and  strong  that  even  the  judges 
were  inclined  to  shrink.  As  Hutchinson  was  acting 
governor  at  the  time,  the  chief  responsibility  fell  on 
Benjamin  Lynde,  the  senior  associate,  who  was  by 
good  fortune  tolerably  competent.  He  was  the  son  of 
the  elder  Lynde,  who,  with  the  exception  of  Paul 
Dudley,  was  the  only  provincial  chief  justice  worthy 
to  be  called  a  lawyer. 

The  juries  were  of  course  drawn  from  among  those 
men  who  afterward  fought  at  Lexington  and  Bunker 
Hill,  and,  like  the  presiding  judge  and  the  counsel, 
they  sympathized  with  the  Revolutionary  cause.  Yet 
the  prisoners  were  patiently  tried  according  to  the  law 
and  the  evidence ;  all  that  skill,  learning,  and  courage 
could  do  for  them  was  done,  the  court  charged  impar- 
tially,  and  the  verdicts  were,  Not  guilty. 

1  Memoir  of  Josiah  Quincy,  Jr.  pp.  26,  27. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE   REVOLUTION. 

STATUS  appears  to  be  that  stage  of  civilisation 
whence  advancing  communities  emerge  into  the  era 
of  individual  liberty.  In  its  most  perfect  develop- 
ment it  takes  the  form  of  caste,  and  the  presumption 
is  the  movement  toward  caste  begins  upon  the  aban- 
donment of  a  wandering  life,  and  varies  in  intensity 
with  the  environment  and  temperament  of  each  race, 
the  feebler  sinking  into  a  state  of  equilibrium,  when 
change  by  spontaneous  growth  ceases  to  be  percepti- 
ble. So  long  as  the  brain  remains  too  feeble  for  sus- 
tained original  thought,  and  man  therefore  lacks  the 
energy  to  rebel  against  routine,  this  condition  of  ex- 
istence must  continue,  and  its  inevitable  tendency  is 
toward  rigid  distinctions  of  rank,  and  as  a  necessary 
consequence  toward  the  limitation  of  the  range  of  am- 
bition, by  the  conventional  lines  dividing  the  occupa- 
tions of  the  classes.  Such  at  least  in  a  general  way 
was  the  progression  of  the  Jews,  and  in  a  less  marked 
degree  of  the  barbarians  who  overran  the  Roman  Em- 
pire. Yet  even  these,  when  they  acquired  permanent 
abodes,  gravitated  strongly  enough  toward  caste  to 
produce  a  social  system  based  on  monopoly  and  privi- 
lege which  lasted  through  many  centuries.  On  the 


THE  REVOLUTION.  485 

other  hand,  the  democratic  formula  of  "  equality  be- 
fore the  law  "  best  defines  the  modern  conception  of 
human  relations,  and  this  maxim  indicates  a  tone  of 
thought  directly  the  converse  of  that  which  begot 
status;  for  whereas  the  one  strove  to  raise  impass- 
able barriers  against  free  competition  in  the  struggle 
for  existence,  the  ideal  of  the  other  is  to  offer  the 
fullest  scope  for  the  expansion  of  the  faculties. 

As  in  Western  Europe  church  and  state  alike  rested 
upon  the  customs  of  the  Middle  Ages,  a  change  so 
fundamental  must  have  wrought  the  overthrow,  not 
only  of  the  vastest  vested  interests,  but  of  the  pro- 
foundest  religious  prejudices,  consequently,  it  could 
not  have  been  accomplished  peaceably ;  and  in  point 
of  fact  the  conservatives  were  routed  in  two  ter- 
rific outbreaks,  whereof  the  second  was  the  sequence  - 
of  the  first,  though  following  it  after  a  considerable 
interval  of  time.  By  the  wars  of  the  Reformation 
freedom  of  thought  was  gained;  by  the  revolutions 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  swept  away  the  incu- 
bus of  feudalism,  liberty  of  action  was  won ;  and  as 
Massachusetts  had  been  colonized  by  the  radicals  of 
the  first  insurrection,  it  was  not  unnatural  that  their 
children  should  have  led  the  second.  So  much  may 
be  readily  conceded,  and  yet  the  inherited  tendency 
toward  liberalism  alone  would  have  been  insufficient 
to  have  inspired  the  peculiar  unanimity  of  sentiment 
which  animated  her  people  in  their  resistance  to  Great 
Britain,  and  which  perhaps  was  stronger  among  her 
clergy,  whose  instincts  regarding  domestic  affairs  were 


486  THE  REVOLUTION. 

intensely  conservative,  than  among  any  other  portion 
of  her  population.  The  reasons  for  this  phenomenon 
are  worthy  of  investigation,  for  they  are  not  only  in- 
teresting in  themselves,  but  they  furnish  an  admirable 
illustration  of  the  irresistible  action  of  antecedent  and 
external  causes  on  the  human  mind. 

Under  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  the  church  gave 
distinction  and  power,  and  therefore  monopolized  the 
ability  which  sought  professional  life ;  but  under  the 
provincial  government  new  careers  were  opened,  and 
intellectual  activity  began  to  flow  in  broader  chan- 
nels. John  Adams  illustrates  the  effect  produced  by 
the  changed  environment ;  when  only  twenty  he  made 
this  suggestive  entry  in  his  Diary :  "  The  following 
questions  may  be  answered  some  time  or  other, 
namely,  —  Where  do  we  find  a  precept  in  the  Gos- 
pel requiring  Ecclesiastical  Synods?  Convocations? 
Councils?  Decrees?  Creeds?  Confessions?  Oaths? 
Subscriptions?  and  whole  cart-loads  of  other  trum- 
pery that  we  find  religion  encumbered  with  in  these 
days  ?  "  1 

Such  men  became  lawyers,  doctors,  or  merchants ; 
theology  ceased  to  occupy  their  minds ;  and  gradually 
the  secular  thought  of  New  England  grew  to  be  coin- 
cident with  that  of  the  other  colonies. 

Throughout  America  the  institutions  favored  indi- 
viduality. No  privileged  class  existed  among  the 
whites.  Under  the  careless  rule  of  Great  Britain 
habits  of  personal  liberty  had  taken  root,  which 
1  Works  ofJ.  Adams,  ii.  5. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  487 

showed  themselves  in  the  tenacity  wherewith  the  peo- 
ple clung  to  their  customs  of  self-government;  and 
so  long  as  these  usages  were  respected,  under  which 
they  had  always  lived,  and  which  they  believed  to  be 
as  well  established  as  Magna  Charta,  there  were  not 
in  all  the  king's  broad  dominions  more  loyal  subjects 
than  men  like  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Jay. 

The  generation  now  living  can  read  the  history  of 
the  Revolution  dispassionately,  and  to  them  it  is  grow- 
ing clear  that  our  ancestors  were  technically  in  the 
wrong.  For  centuries  Parliament  has  been  theoreti- 
cally absolute ;  therefore  it  might  constitutionally  tax 
the  colonies,  or  do  whatsoever  else  with  them  it 
pleased.  Practically,  however,  it  is  self-evident  that 
the  most  perfect  despotism  must  be  limited  by  the 
extent  to  which  subjects  will  obey,  and  this  is  a  mat- 
ter of  habit;  rebellions,  therefore,  are  usually  caused 
by  the  conservative  instinct,  represented  by  the  will 
of  the  sovereign,  attempting  to  enforce  obedience  to 
customs  which  a  people  have  outgrown. 

In  1776,  though  the  Middle  Ages  had  passed,  their 
traditions  still  prevailed  in  Europe,  and  probably  the 
antagonism  between  this  survival  of  a  dead  civiliza- 
tion and  the  modern  democracy  of  America  was  too 
deep  for  any  arbitrament  save  trial  by  battle.  Iden- 
tically the  same  dispute  had  arisen  in  England  the 
century  before,  when  the  commons  rebelled  against 
the  prerogatives  of  the  crown,  and  Cromwell  fought 
like  Washington,  in  the  cause  of  individual  emancipa- 
tion; but  the  movement  in  Great  Britain  was  too 


488  THE  REVOLUTION. 

radical  for  the  age,  and  was  followed  by  a  reaction 
whose  force  was  not  spent  when  George  III.  came  to 
the  throne. 

Precedent  is  only  inflexible  among  stationary  races, 
and  advancing  nations  glory  in  their  capacity  for 
change  ;  hence  it  is  precisely  those  who  have  led  revolt 
successfully  who  have  won  the  brightest  fame.  If, 
therefore,  it  be  admitted  that  they  should  rank  among 
mankind's  noblest  benefactors,  who  have  risked  their 
lives  to  win  the  freedom  we  enjoy,  and  which  seems 
destined  to  endure,  there  are  few  to  whom  posterity 
owes  a  deeper  debt  than  to  our  early  statesmen  ;  nor, 
judging  their  handiwork  by  the  test  of  time,  have 
many  lived  who  in  genius  have  surpassed  them.  In 
the  fourth  article  of  their  Declaration  of  Rights,  the 
Continental  Congress  resolved  that  the  colonists  "  are 
entitled  to  a  free  and  exclusive  power  of  legislation 
in  their  several  provincial  legislatures,  ...  in  all  cases 
of  taxation  and  internal  polity,  subject  only  to  the 
negative  of  their  sovereign,  in  such  manner  as  has 
been  heretofore  used  and  accustomed.  But,  ...  we 
cheerfully  consent  to  the  operation  of  such  acts  of 
Parliament  as  are,  bondjide,  restrained  to  the  regula- 
tion of  our  external  commerce." 

In  1778  a  statute  was  passed,  of  which  an  English 
jurist  wrote  in  1885 :  "  One  act,  indeed,  of  the  British 
Parliament  might,  looked  at  in  the  light  of  history,  claim 
a  peculiar  sanctity.  It  is  certainly  an  enactment  of 
which  the  terms,  we  may  safely  predict,  will  never  be 
repealed  and  the  spirit  never  be  violated.  ...  It  pro- 


THE  REVOLUTION.  489 

vides  that  Parliament  '  will  not  impose  any  duty,  tax 
or  assessment  whatever,  payable  in  any  of  his  majes- 
ty's colonies  .  .  .  except  only  such  duties  as  it  may 
be  expedient  to  impose  for  the  regulation  of  com- 
merce.' "  1 

Thus  is  the  memory  of  their  grievance  held  sacred 
by  the  descendants  of  their  adversaries  after  the  lapse 
of  a  century,  and  the  local  self-government  for  which 
they  pleaded  has  become  the  immutable  policy  of  the 
empire.  The  principles  they  laid  down  have  been 
equally  enduring,  for  they  proclaimed  the  equality  of 
men  before  the  law,  the  corner-stone  of  modern  civil- 
ization, and  the  Constitution  they  wrote  still  remains 
the  fundamental  charter  of  the  liberties  of  the  repub- 
lic of  the  United  States. 

Nevertheless  it  remains  true  that  secular  liberalism 
alone  could  never  have  produced  the  peculiarly  acri- 
monious hostility  to  Great  Britain  wherein  Massachu- 
setts stood  preeminent,  whose  causes,  if  traced,  will  be 
found  imbedded  at  the  very  foundation  of  her  social 
organization,  and  to  have  been  steadily  in  action  ever 
since  the  settlement.  Too  little  study  is  given  to  ec- 
clesiastical history,  for  probably  nothing  throws  so 
much  light  on  certain  phases  of  development;  and 
particularly  in  the  case  of  this  Commonwealth  the  im- 
pulses which  moulded  her  destiny  cannot  be  under- 
stood unless  the  events  that  stimulated  the  passions 
of  her  clergy  are  steadily  kept  in  view. 

The  early  aggrandizement  of  her  priests  has  been 
1  The  Law  of  the  Constitution,  Dicey,  p.  62. 


490  THE  REVOLUTION. 

described;  the  inevitable  conflict  with  the  law  into 
which  their  ambition  plunged  them,  and  the  over- 
throw of  the  theocracy  which  resulted  therefrom,  have 
been  related ;  but  the  causes  that  kept  alive  the  old 
exasperation  with  England  throughout  the  eighteenth 
century  have  not  yet  been  told. 

The  influence  of  men  like  Leverett  and  Colman 
tended  to  broaden  the  church,  but  necessarily  the 
process  was  slow ;  and  there  is  no  lack  of  evidence 
that  the  majority  of  the  ministers  had  little  relish  for 
the  toleration  forced  upon  them  by  the  second  char- 
ter. It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  find  the  sec- 
taries soon  again  driven  to  invoke  the  protection  of 
the  king. 

Though  doubtless  some  monastic  orders  have  been 
vowed  to  poverty,  it  will  probably  be  generally  con- 
ceded that  a  life  of  privation  has  not  found  favor 
with  divines  as  a  class ;  and  one  of  the  earliest  acts  of 
the  provincial  legislature  bid  each  town  choose  an 
able  and  orthodox  minister  to  dispense  the  Word  of 
God,  who  should  be  "  suitably  encouraged  "  by  an  as- 
sessment on  all  inhabitants  without  distinction.  This 
was  for  many  years  a  bitter  grievance  to  the  dissent- 
ing minority ;  but  there  was  worse  to  come ;  for  some- 
times the  majority  were  heterodox,  when  pastors  were 
elected  who  gave  great  scandal  to  their  evangelical 
brethren.  Therefore,  for  the  prevention  of  "  atheism, 
irreligion  and  prophaness,"  1  it  was  enacted  in  1775 
that  the  justices  of  the  county  should  report  any  town 
1  Province  Laws,  1715,  c.  17. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  491 

without  an  orthodox  minister,  and  thereupon  the  Gen- 
eral Court  should  settle  a  candidate  recommended  to 
them  by  the  ordained  elders,  and  levy  a  special  tax 
for  his  support.  Nor  could  men  animated  by  the  fer- 
vent piety  which  raised  the  Mathers  to  eminence  in 
their  profession  be  expected  to  sit  by  tamely  while 
blasphemers  not  only  worshipped  openly,  but  refused 
to  contribute  to  their  incomes. 

"  We  expect  no  other  but  Satan  will  show  his  rage 
against  us  for  our  endeavors  to  lessen  his  kingdom  of 
darkness.  He  hath  grievously  afflicted  me  (by  God's 
permission)  by  infatuating  or  bewitching  three  or  four 
who  live  in  a  corner  of  my  parish  with  Quaker  no- 
tions, [who]  now  hold  a  separate  meeting  by  them- 
selves." 1 

The  heretics,  on  their  side,  were  filled  with  the 
same  stubborn  spirit  which  had  caused  them  "  obsti- 
nately and  proudly  "  to  "  persecute  "  Norton  and  En- 
dicott  in  earlier  days.  In  1722  godly  preachers  were 
settled  at  Dartmouth  and  Tiverton,  under  the  act,  the 
majority  of  whose  people  were  Quakers  and  Baptists ; 
and  the  Friends  tell  their  own  story  in  a  petition  they 
presented  to  the  crown  in  1724:  "That  the  said  Jo- 
seph Anthony  and  John  Siffon  were  appointed  asses- 
sors of  the  taxes  for  the  said  town  of  Tiverton,  and 
the  said  John  Akin  and  said  Philip  Tabor  for  the  town 
of  Dartmouth,  but  some  of  the  said  assessors  being  of 
the  people  called  Quakers,  and  others  of  them  also 

1  Rev.  S.  Danforth,  1720.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fourth  series,  i. 
258. 


492  THE  REVOLUTION. 

dissenting  from  the  Presbyterians  and  Independents, 
and  greatest  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  towns 
being  also  Quakers  or  Anabaptists  ...  the  said  asses- 
sors duly  assessed  the  other  taxes  .  .  .  relating  to  the 
support  of  government  .  .  .  yet  they  could  not  in  con- 
science assess  any  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  said  towns 
anything  for  or  towards  the  maintenance  of  any  min- 
isters. 

"  That  the  said  Joseph  Anthony,  John  Siffon,  John 
Akin  and  Philip  Tabor,  (on  pretence  of  their  non- 
compliance  with  the  said  law)  were  on  the  25th  of 
the  month  called  May,  1723,  committed  to  the  jail 
aforesaid,  where  they  still  continue  prisoners  under 
great  sufferings  and  hardships  both  to  themselves  and 
families,  and  where  they  must  remain  and  die,  if  not 
relieved  by  the  king's  royal  clemancy  and  favour."  l 

A  hearing  was  had  upon  this  petition  before  the 
Privy  Council,  and  in  June,  1724,  an  order  was  made 
directing  the  remission  of  the  special  taxes  and  the 
release  of  the  prisoners,  who  were  accordingly  liber- 
ated in  obedience  thereto,  after  they  had  been  incar- 
cerated for  thirteen  months. 

The  blow  was  felt  to  be  so  severe  that  the  conven- 
tion of  ministers  the  next  May  decided  to  convene  a 
synod,  and  Dr.  Cotton  Mather  was  appointed  to  draw 
up  a  petition  to  the  legislature. 

"  Considering  the  great  and  visible  decay  of  piety 
in  the  country,  and  the  growth  of  many  miscarriages, 
which  we  fear  may  have  provoked  the  glorious  Lord 
1  Gough's  Quakers,  iv.  222,  223. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  493 

in  a  series  of  various  judgments  wonderfully  to  distress 
us.  ...  It  is  humbly  desired  that  .  .  .  the  .  .  . 
churches  .  .  .  meet  by  their  pastors  ...  in  a  synod, 
and  from  thence  offer  their  advice  upon.  .  .  .  What 
are  the  miscarriages  whereof  we  have  reason  to  think 
the  judgments  of  heaven,  upon  us,  call  us  to  be  more 
generally  sensible,  and  what  may  be  the  most  evan- 
gelical and  effectual  expedients  to  put  a  stop  unto 
those  or  the  like  miscarriages."  1 

The  "  evangelical  expedient "  was  of  course  to  re- 
vive the  Cambridge  Platform ;  nor  was  such  a  scheme 
manifestly  impossible,  for  the  council  voted  "  that  the 
synod  .  .  .  will  be  agreeable  to  this  board,  and  the 
reverend  ministers  are  desired  to  take  their  own  time, 
for  the  said  assembly ;  and  it  is  earnestly  wished  the 
issue  thereof  may  be  a  happy  reformation."  2  In  the 
house  of  representatives  this  resolution  was  read  and 
referred  to  the  next  session. 

Meanwhile  the  Episcopalian  clergymen  of  Boston, 
in  much  alarm,  presented  a  memorial  to  the  General 
Court,  remonstrating  against  the  proposed  measure ; 
but  the  council  resolved  "it  contained  an  indecent 
reflection  on  the  proceedings  of  that  board," 3  and 
dismissed  it.  Nothing  discouraged,  the  remonstrants 
applied  for  protection  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  who 
brought  the  matter  to  the  attention  of  the  law  officers 
of  the  crown.  In  their  opinion  to  call  a  synod  would 
be  "  a  contempt  of  his  majesty's  prerogative,"  and  if 

1  Hutch.  Hist.  3d  ed.  ii.  292,  note. 

2  Chalmers's  Opinions,  i.  8.  8  Idem,  p.  9. 


494  THE  REVOLUTION. 

"  notwithstanding,  .  .  .  they  shall  continue  to  hold 
their  assembly,  ...  the  principal  actors  therein 
[should]  be  prosecuted  .  .  .  for  a  misdemeanour."  l 

Steadily  and  surely  the  coil  was  tightening  which 
was  destined  to  strangle  the  established  church  of 
Massachusetts ;  but  the  resistance  of  the  ministers 
was  desperate,  and  lent  a  tinge  of  theological  hate  to 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  They  believed  it 
would  be  impossible  for  them  to  remain  a  dominant 
priesthood  if  Episcopalianism,  supported  by  the  pat- 
ronage of  the  crown,  should  be  allowed  to  take  root  in 
the  land ;  yet  the  Episcopalians  represented  conser- 
vatism, therefore  they  were  forced  to  become  radicals, 
and  the  liberalism  they  taught  was  fated  to  destroy 
their  power. 

Meanwhile  their  sacred  vineyard  lay  open  to  at- 
tack upon  every  side.  At  Boston  the  royal  governors 
went  to  King's  Chapel  and  encouraged  the  use  of  the 
liturgy,  while  an  inroad  was  made  into  Connecticut 
from  New  York.  Early  in  the  century  a  certain 
Colonel  Heathcote  organized  a  regular  system  of  in- 
vasion. He  was  a  man  eminently  fitted  for  the  task, 
being  filled  with  zeal  for  the  conversion  of  dissenters. 
"  I  have  the  charity  to  believe  that,  after  having  heard 
one  of  our  ministers  preach,  they  will  not  look  upon 
our  church  to  be  such  a  monster  as  she  is  represented ; 
and  being  convinced  of  some  of  the  cheats,  many  of 
them  may  duly  consider  of  the  sin  of  schism."  2 

"  They  have  abundance  of  odd  kind  of  laws,  to  pre- 

1  Chalmers's  Opinions,  p.  13. 
•  Conn.  Church  Documents,  i.  12. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  495 

vent  any  dissenting  .  .  .  and  endeavour  to  keep  the 
people  in  as  much  blindness  and  unacquaintedness 
with  any  other  religion  as  possible,  but  in  a  more  par- 
ticular manner  the  church,  looking  upon  her  as  the 
most  dangerous  enemy  they  have  to  grapple  withal, 
and  abundance  of  pains  is  taken  to  make  the  ignorant 
think  as  bad  as  possible  of  her ;  and  I  really  believe 
that  more  than  half  the  people  in  that  government 
think  our  church  to  be  little  better  than  the  Papist, 
and  they  fail  not  to  improve  every  little  thing  against 
us."1 

He  had  little  liking  for  the  elders,  whom  he  de- 
scribed as  being  "  as  absolute  in  their  respective  par- 
ishes as  the  Pope  of  Rome ; "  but  he  felt  kindly 
toward  "  the  passive,  obedient  people,  who  dare  not  do 
otherwise  than  obey."  2  He  explained  the  details  of 
his  plan  in  his  letters,  and  though  he  was  aware  of  the 
difficulties,  he  did  not  despair,  his  chief  anxiety  being 
to  get  a  suitable  missionary.  He  finally  chose  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Muirson,  and  in  1706  began  a  series  of 
proselytizing  tours.  Nevertheless,  the  clergyman  was 
wroth  at  the  treatment  he  received. 

HONOR'D  SIR,  I  entreat  your  acceptance  of  my 
most  humble  and  hearty  thanks  for  the  kind  and 
Christian  advice  you  were  pleased  to  tender  me  in  re- 
lation to  Connecticut.  ...  I  know  that  meekness  and 
moderation  is  most  agreeable  to  the  mind  of  our 
blessed  Saviour,  Christ,  who  himself  was  meek  and 
lowly,  and  would  have  all  his  followers  to  learn  that 
1  Conn.  Church  Documents,  i.  9.  ' 2  Idem,  i.  10. 


496  THE  REVOLUTION. 

lesson  of  him.  ...  I  have  duly  considered  all  these 
things,  and  have  carried  myself  civilly  and  kindly  to 
the  Independent  party,  but  they  have  ungratefully  re- 
sented my  love ;  yet  I  will  further  consider  the  obli- 
gations that  my  holy  religion  lays  upon  me,  to  forgive 
injuries  and  wrongs,  and  to  return  good  for  their  evil. 
...  I  desired  only  a  liberty  of  conscience  might  be 
allowed  to  the  members  of  the  National  Church  of 
England;  which,  notwithstanding,  they  seemed  un- 
willing to  grant,  and  left  no  means  untried,  both  foul 
and  fair,  to  prevent  the  settling  the  church  among 
them;  for  one  of  their  justices  came  to  my  lodging 
and  forewarned  me,  at  my  peril,  from  preaching,  tell- 
ing me  that  I  did  an  illegal  thing  in  bringing  in  new 
ways  among  them;  the  people  were  likewise  threat- 
ened with  prison,  and  a  forfeiture  of  X5  for  coming 
to  hear  me.  It  will  require  more  time  than  you 
will  willingly  bestow  on  these  lines  to  express  how 
rigidly  and  severely  they  treat  our  people,  by  taking 
their  estates  by  distress,  when  they  do  not  willingly 
pay  to  support  their  ministers.  .  .  .  They  tell  our 
people  that  they  will  not  suffer  the  house  of  God  to 
be  defiled  with  idolatrous  worship  and  superstitious 
ceremonies.  .  .  .  They  say  the  sign  of  the  cross  is  the 
mark  of  the  beast  and  the  sign  of  the  devil,  and  that 
those  who  receive  it  are  given  to  the  devil.  .  .  . 
Honored  sir,  your  most  assured  friend,  .  .  . 

GEO.  MUIESON. 
RYE,  9th  January,  1707-8.1 

1  Conn.  Church  Documents,  i.  29. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  497 

However,  in  spite  of  his  difficulties,  he  was  able  to 
boast  that  "  I  have  ...  in  one  town,  .  .  .  baptized 
about  32,  young  and  old,  and  administered  the  Holy 
Sacrament  to  18,  who  never  received  it  before.  Each 
time  I  had  a  numerous  congregation."  l 

The  foregoing  correspondence  was  with  the  secre- 
tary of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel, 
which  had  been  incorporated  in  1701,  and  had  pres- 
ently afterward  appointed  Colonel  Heathcote  as  their 
agent.  They  could  have  chosen  no  more  energetic 
representative,  nor  was  it  long  before  his  exertions  be- 
gan to  bear  fruit.  In  1707  nineteen  inhabitants  of 
Stratford  sent  a  memorial  to  the  Bishop  of  London, 
the  forerunner  of  many  to  come.  "  Because  by  reason 
of  the  said  laws  we  are  not  able  to  support  a  minister, 
we  further  pray  your  lordship  may  be  pleased  to 
send  one  over  with  a  missionary  allowance  from  the 
honourable  corporation,  invested  with  full  power,  so 
as  that  he  may  preach  and  we  hear  the  blessed  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  without  molestation  and  terror."  2 

The   Anglican  prelates  conceived  it   to   be   their 
duty  to  meddle  with  the  religious  concerns  of  New 
England ;  therefore,  by  means  of  the  organization  of 
the  venerable  society,  they  proceeded  to  plant  a  num- 
ber of  missions  throughout  the  country,  whose  mis- 
sionaries were  paid  from  the  corporate  funds.     What- 
ever opinion  may  be  formed  of  the  wisdom  of  a  pol- 
icy certain  to  exasperate  deeply  so  powerful  and  so 
1  Conn.  Church  Documents,  i.  23. 
a  Idem,  I  34. 


498  THE  REVOLUTION. 

revengeful  a  class  as  the  Congregational  elders,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  the  Episcopalians  achieved  a  meas- 
ure of  success,  in  the  last  degree  alarming,  not  only 
among  the  laity,  but  among  the  clergy  themselves. 
Mr.  Reed,  pastor  of  Stratford,  was  the  first  to  go  over, 
and  was  of  course  deprived  of  his  parish ;  his  defec- 
tion was  followed  in  1722  by  that  of  the  rector  of 
Yale  and  six  other  ministers ;  and  the  Rev.  Joseph 
Webb,  who  thought  the  end  was  near,  wrote  in  deep 
affliction  to  break  the  news  to  his  friends  in  Boston. 

FAIRFIELD,   Oct.  2,  1722. 

REVEREND  AND  HONOURED  SIR,  The  occasion  of 
my  now  giving  you  the  trouble  of  these  few  lines  is 
to  me,  and  I  presume  to  many  others,  melancholy 
enough.  You  have  perhaps  heard  before  now,  or  will 
hear  before  these  come  to  hand,  (I  suppose)  of  the  re- 
volt of  several  persons  of  figure  among  us  unto  the 
Church  of  England.  There's  the  Rev.  Mr.  Cutler, 
rector  of  our  college,  and  Mr.  Daniel  Brown,  the 
tutor  thereof.  There  are  also  of  ordained  ministers, 
pastors  of  several  churches  among  us,  the  Rev.  Mes- 
sieurs following,  viz.  John  Hart  of  East  Guilford, 
Samuel  Whittlesey  of  Wallingford,  Jared  Eliot  of 
Kennelworth,  .  .  .  Samuel  Johnson  of  West-Haven, 
and  James  Wetmore  of  North-Haven.  They  are  the 
most  of  them  reputed  men  of  considerable  learning, 
and  all  of  them  of  a  virtuous  and  blameless  conver- 
sation. I  apprehend  the  axe  is  hereby  laid  to  the 
root  of  our  civil  and  sacred  enjoyments ;  and  a  dole- 


THE  REVOLUTION.  499 

ful  gap  opened  for  trouble  and  confusion  in  our 
churches.  .  .  .  It  is  a  very  dark  day  with  us ;  and  we 
need  pity,  prayers  and  counsel.1 

From  the  tone  in  which  these  tidings  were  received 
it  is  plain  that  the  charity  and  humility  of  the  golden 
age  of  Massachusetts  were  not  yet  altogether  extinct 
among  her  ecclesiastics.  The  ministers  published 
their  "  sentiments "  in  a  document  beginning  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  These  new  Episcopalians  have  declared  their  de- 
sire to  introduce  an  usurpation  and  a  superstition  into 
the  church  of  God,  clearly  condemned  in  the  sacred 
Scriptures,  which  our  loyalty  and  chastity  to  our 
Saviour,  obliges  us  to  keep  close  unto ;  and  a  tyranny, 
from  which  the  whole  church,  which  desires  to  be  re- 
formed, has  groaned  that  it  may  be  delivered.  .  .  . 
The  scandalous  conjunction  of  these  unhappy  men 
with  the  Papists  is,  perhaps,  more  than  what  they  have 
themselves  duly  considered."2  In  "A  Faithful  Rela- 
tion "  of  what  had  happened  it  was  observed :  "  It  has 
caused  some  indignation  in  them,"  (the  people)  "  to 
see  the  vile  indignity  cast  by  these  cudweeds  upon 
those  excellent  servants  of  God,  who  were  the  leaders 
of  the  flock  that  followed  our  Saviour  into  this  wilder- 
ness :  and  upon  the  ministry  of  them,  and  their  suc- 

i  Rev.  Joseph  Webb  to  Dr.  C.  Mather.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
second  series,  ii.  131. 

3  The  Sentiments  of  the  Several  Ministers  in  Boston.  Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.  second  series,  ii.  133. 


500  THE  REVOLUTION. 

cessours,  in  which  there  has  been  seen  for  more  than 
forescore  years  together,  the  power  and  blessing  of 
God  for  the  salvation  of  many  thousands  in  the  suc- 
cessive generations ;  with  a  success  beyond  what  any 
of  them  which  set  such  an  high  value  on  the  Episco- 
pal ordination  could  ever  boast  of !  ...  It  is  a  sen- 
sible addition,  unto  their  horrour,  to  see  the  horrid 
character  of  more  than  one  or  two,  who  have  got 
themselves  qualified  with  Episcopal  ordination,  .  .  . 
and  come  over  as  missionaries,  perhaps  to  serve  scarce 
twenty  families  of  such  people,  in  a  town  of  several 
hundred  families  of  Christians,  better  instructed  than 
the  very  missionaries :  to  think,  that  they  must  have 
no  other  ministers,  but  such  as  are  ordained,  and 
ordered  by  them,  who  have  sent  over  such  tippling 
sots  unto  them  :  instead  of  those  pious  and  painful 
and  faithful  instructors  which  they  are  now  blessed 
withal !  " l 

Only  three  of  the  converts  had  the  fortitude  to 
withstand  the  pressure  to  which  they  were  exposed : 
Cutler,  Johnson,  and  Brown  went  to  England  for  or- 
dination ;  there  Brown  died  of  small-pox,  but  Cutler 
returned  to  Boston  as  a  missionary,  and  as  he,  too, 
possessed  a  certain  clerical  aptitude  for  forcible  ex- 
pression, it  is  fitting  he  should  relate  his  own  ex- 
periences :  — 

"  I  find  that,  in  spite  of  malice  and  the  basest  arts 
our  godly  enemies  can  easily  stoop  to,  that  the  interest 

1  "  A  Faithful  Relation  of  a  Late  Occurrence."  Mass.  Hist. 
Coll.  second  series,  ii.  138,  139. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  501 

of  the  church  grows  and  penetrates  into  the  very  heart 
of  this  country.  .  .  .  This  great  town  swarms  with 
them  "  (churchmen),  "  and  we  are  so  confident  of  our 
power  and  interest  that,  out  of  four  Parliament-men 
which  this  town  sends  to  our  General  Assembly,  the 
church  intends  to  put  up  for  two,  though  I  am  not 
very  sanguine  about  our  success  in  it.  ...  My  church 
grows  faster  than  I  expected,  and,  while  it  doth  so,  I 
will  not  be  mortified  by  all  the  lies  and  affronts  they 
pelt  me  with.  My  greatest  difficulty  ariseth  from 
another  quarter,  and  is  owing  to  the  covetous  and 
malicious  spirit  of  a  clergyman  in  this  town,  who,  in 
lying  and  villany,  is  a  perfect  overmatch  for  any  dis- 
senter that  I  know ;  and,  after  all  the  odium  that  he 
contracted  heretofore  among  them,  is  fully  recon- 
ciled and  endeared  to  them  by  his  falsehood  to  the 
church."  1 

Time  did  not  tend  to  pacify  the  feud.  There  was 
no  bishop  in  America,  and  candidates  had  to  be  sent 
to  England  for  ordination  ;  nor  without  such  an  offi- 
cial was  it  found  possible  to  enforce  due  discipline ; 
hence  the  anxiety  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and,  indeed,  of  all 
the  Episcopalian  clergy,  to  have  one  appointed  for  the 
colonies  was  not  unreasonable.  Nevertheless,  the  op- 
position they  met  with  was  acrimonious  in  the  extreme, 
so  much  so  as  to  make  them  hostile  to  the  charters 
themselves,  which  they  thought  sheltered  their  adver- 
saries. 

1  Dr.  Timothy  Cutler  to  Dr.  Zachary  Grey,  April  2,  1725. 
Perry's  Collection,  iii.  663. 


502  THE  REVOLUTION. 

"  The  king,  by  his  instructions  to  our  governor,  de- 
mands a  salary ;  and  if  he  punishes  our  obstinacy  by 
vacating  our  charter,  I  shall  think  it  an  eminent  bless- 
ing of  his  illustrious  reign."  l  "  As  I  said,  infidelity 
prevails  also  among  us.  Chubb's  and  Dr.  Clarke's 
works,  etc.,  do  much  mischief  among  us.  One  Kent, 
a  dissenting  teacher,  is  now  suspended  by  a  council 
for  Arianism  and  Arminianism,  though  the  latter  is 
grown  so  venial  that  it  would  have  been  hushed  had 
it  not  been  for  the  former."  2 

Whitefield  came  in  1740,  and  the  tumult  of  the 
great  revival  roused  fresh  animosities. 

"  When  Mr.  Whitefield  first  arrived  here  the  whole 
town  was  alarmed.  .  .  .  The  conventicles  were  crowded ; 
but  he  chose  rather  our  Common,  where  multitudes 
might  see  him  in  all  his  awful  postures ;  besides  that, 
in  one  crowded  conventicle,  before  he  came  in,  six 
were  killed  in  a  fright.  The  fellow  treated  the  most 
venerable  with  an  air  of  superiority.  But  he  forever 
lashed  and  anathematized  the  Church  of  England ; 
and  that  was  enough. 

"  After  him  came  one  Tennent,  a  monster !  impu- 
dent and  noisy,  and  told  them  all  they  were  damn'd, 
damn'd,  damn'd !  This  charmed  them,  and  in  the 
most  dreadful  winter  that  I  ever  saw,  people  wal- 
lowed in  the  snow  night  and  day  for  the  benefit  of  his 

1  Dr.  Cutler  to  Dr.  Grey,  April  20,  1731.     Perry's  Coll.  ill 
672. 

2  Dr.  Cutler  to  Dr.  Grey,  June  5,  1735.    Perry's   Coll.  iii 
674 


THE  REVOLUTION.  503 

beastly  brayings ;  and  many  ended  their  days  under 
these  fatigues.  Both  of  them  carried  more  money  out 
of  these  parts  than  the  poor  could  be  thankful  for."  l 

The  excitement  was  followed  by  its  natural  reaction 
conversions  became  numerous,  and  the  unevangelical 
temper  this  bred  between  the  rival  clergymen  is  pain- 
fully apparent  in  a  correspondence  wherein  Dr.  John- 
son became  involved.  Mr.  Gold,  the  Congregationalist 
minister  of  Stratford,  whom  he  called  a  dissenter,  had 
said  of  him  "that  he  was  a  thief,  and  robber  of 
churches,  and  had  no  business  in  the  place ;  that  his 
church  doors  stood  open  to  all  mischief  and  wicked- 
ness, and  other  words  of  like  import."  He  there- 
fore wrote  to  defend  himself :  "  As  to  my  having  no 
business  here,  I  will  only  say  that  to  me  it  appears 
most  evident  that  I  have  as  much  business  here  at 
least  as  you  have,  —  being  appointed  by  a  society  in 
England  incorporated  by  royal  charter  to  provide 
ministers  for  the  church  people  in  America ;  nor  does 
his  majesty  allow  of  any  establishment  here,  exclusive 
of  the  church,  much  less  of  anything  that  should  pre- 
clude the  society  he  has  incorporated  from  providing 
and  sending  ministers  to  the  church  people  in  these 
countries."  2  To  which  Mr.  Gold  replied  :  — 

As  for  the  pleas  which  you  make  for  Col.  Lewis,  and 
others  that  have  broke  away  disorderly  from  our  church, 

1  Dr.  Cutler  to  Dr.  Grey,  Sept.  24,  1743.     Perry's  Coll.  iii. 
676. 

2  Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  p.  108. 


504  THE  REVOLUTION. 

I  think  there  's  neither  weight  nor  truth  in  them ;  nor 
do  I  believe  such  poor  shifts  will  stand  them  nor  you 
in  any  stead  in  the  awful  day  of  account ;  and  as  for 
your  saying  that  as  bad  as  you  are  yet  you  lie  open  to 
conviction,  —  for  my  part  I  find  no  reason  to  think 
you  do,  seeing  you  are  so  free  and  full  in  denying 
plain  matters  of  fact.  ...  I  don't  think  it  worth  my 
while  to  say  anything  further  in  the  affair,  and  as  you 
began  the  controversy  against  rule  or  justice,  so  I  hope 
modesty  will  induce  you  to  desist ;  and  do  assure  you 
that  if  you  see  cause  to  make  any  more  replies,  my 
purpose  is,  without  reading  of  them,  to  put  them  un- 
der the  pot  among  my  other  thorns  and  there  let  one 
flame  quench  the  matter.  .  .  .  HEZ.  GOLD. 

STRATFORD,  July  21,  1741.1 

And  so  by  an  obvious  sequence  of  cause  and  effect 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  clergy  were  early  ripe  for 
rebellion,  and  only  awaited  their  opportunity.  Nor 
could  it  have  been  otherwise.  An  autocratic  priest- 
hood had  seen  their  order  stripped  of  its  privileges 
one  by  one,  until  nothing  remained  but  their  moral 
empire  over  their  parishioners,  and  then  at  last  not 
only  did  an  association  of  rival  ecclesiastics  send  over 
emissaries  to  steal  away  their  people,  but  they  pro- 
posed to  establish  a  bishop  in  the  land.  The  thought 
was  wormwood.  He  would  be  rich,  he  would  live  in  a 
palace,  he  would  be  supported  by  the  patronage  and 
pomp  of  the  royal  governors  ;  the  imposing  ceremo- 
1  Life  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  p.  111. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  505 

nial  would  become  fashionable ;  and  in  imagination 
they  already  saw  themselves  reduced  to  the  humble 
position  of  dissenters  in  their  own  kingdom.  Jona- 
than Mayhew  was  called  a  heretic  by  his  more  conser- 
vative brethren,  but  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  and  the 
most  acrid  of  the  Boston  ministers.  He  took  little 
pains  to  disguise  his  feelings,  and  so  early  as  1750  he 
preached  a  sermon,  which  was  once  famous,  wherein 
he  told  his  hearers  that  it  was  their  duty  to  oppose 
the  encroachment  of  the  British  prelates,  if  necessary, 
by  force. 

"  Suppose,  then,  it  was  allowed,  in  general,  that  the 
clergy  were  a  useful  order  of  men ;  that  they  ought 
to  be  esteemed  very  highly  in  love  for  their  work's 
sake,  and  to  be  decently  supported  by  those  they 
serve,  '  the  laborer  being  worthy  of  his  reward.'  Sup- 
pose, further,  that  a  number  of  reverend  and  right 
reverend  drones,  who  worked  not ;  who  preached,  per- 
haps, but  once  a  year,  and  then  not  the  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ,  but  the  divine  right  of  tithes,  the  dignity 
of  their  office  as  ambassadors  of  Christ,  .  .  .  suppose 
such  men  as  these,  spending  their  lives  in  effeminacy, 
luxury,  and  idleness ;  .  .  .  suppose  this  should  be  the 
case,  .  .  .  would  not  everybody  be  astonished  at  such 
insolence,  injustice,  and  impiety?"  l  "Civil  tyranny 
is  usually  small  in  its  beginning,  like  '  the  drop  of  a 
bucket,'  till  at  length,  like  a  mighty  torrent  ...  it 
bears  down  all  before  it.  ...  Thus  it  is  as  to  eccle- 

1  "  Discourse  concerning  Unlimited  Submission,"  Jonathan 
Mayhew.  Thornton's  American  Pulpit,  pp.  71,  72. 


506  THE  REVOLUTION. 

siastical  tyranny  also  —  the  most  cruel,  intolerable, 
and  impious  of  any.  From  small  beginnings,  '  it  ex- 
alts itself  above  all  that  is  called  God  and  that  is 
worshipped.'  People  have  no  security  against  being 
unmercifully  priest-ridden  but  by  keeping  all  imperi- 
ous bishops,  and  other  clergymen  who  love  to  '  lord 
it  over  God's  heritage,'  from  getting  their  foot  into 
the  stirrup  at  all.  .  .  .  For  which  reason  it  becomes 
every  friend  to  truth  and  human  kind,  every  lover  of 
God  and  the  Christian  religion,  to  bear  a  part  in  op- 
posing this  hateful  monster."  1 

Between  these  envenomed  priests  peace  was  impos- 
sible ;  each  year  brought  with  it  some  new  aggression 
which  added  fuel  to  the  flame.  In  1763,  Mr.  Apthorp, 
missionary  at  Cambridge,  published  a  pamphlet,  in 
answer,  as  he  explained,  to  "  some  anonymous  libels 
which  appeared  in  our  newspapers  .  .  .  grossly  re- 
flecting on  the  society  &  their  missionaries,  &  in  par- 
ticular on  the  mission  at  Cambridge." 2 

By  this  time  the  passions  of  the  Congregationalist 
divines  had  reached  a  point  when  words  seemed  hardly 
adequate  to  give  them  expression.  The  Rev.  Ezra 
Stiles  wrote  to  Dr.  Mayhew  in  these  terms:  — 

"  Shall  we  be  hushed  into  silence,  by  those  whose 
tender  mercies  are  cruelty  ;  and  who,  notwithstanding 
their  pretence  of  moderation,  wish  the  subversion  of 

1  Preface  to  "  A  Discourse    concerning   Unlimited   Submis- 
sion," Jonathan  Mayhew.     Thornton's  Amer.  Pulpit,  pp.  50,  51. 

2  East  Apthorp  to  the  Secretary,  June  25,    1763.      Perry's 
Coll  iii.  500. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  507 

our  churches,  and  are  combined,  in  united,  steady 
and  vigorous  effort,  by  all  the  arts  of  subtlety  and 
intreague,  for  our  ruin  ?  "  l 

Mr.  Stiles  need  have  felt  no  anxiety,  for,  according 
to  Mr.  Apthorp,  "  this  occasion  was  greedily  seized, 
...  by  a  dissenting  minister  of  Boston,  a  man  of  a 
singular  character,  of  good  abilities,  but  of  a  turbu- 
lent &  contentious  disposition,  at  variance,  not  only 
with  the  Church  of  England,  but  in  the  essential  doc- 
trines of  religion,  with  most  of  his  own  party."  2  He 
alluded  to  a  tract  written  by  Dr.  Mayhew  in  answer 
to  his  pamphlet,  in  which  he  reproduced  the  charge 
made  by  Mr.  Stiles :  "  The  society  have  long  had  a 
formal  design  to  dissolve  and  root  out  all  our  New- 
England  churches ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  reduce  them 
all  to  the  Episcopal  form."  3  And  withal  he  clothed 
his  thoughts  in  language  which  angered  Mr.  Caner :  — 

"  A  few  days  after,  Mr  Apthorpe  published  the  en- 
closed pamphlet,  in  vindication  of  the  institution  and 
conduct  of  the  society,  which  occasioned  the  ungenteel 
reflections  which  your  grace  will  find  in  DF  Mayhew's 
pamphlet,  in  which,  not  content  with  the  personal 
abuse  of  Mf  Apthorpe,  he  has  insulted  the  missions 
in  general,  the  society,  the  Church  of  England,  in 
short,  the  whole  rational  establishment,  in  so  dirty  a 
manner,  that  it  seems  to  be  below  the  character  of  a 
gentleman  to  enter  into  controversy  with  him.  In 

1  Dr.  Ezra  Stiles  to  Dr.  Mayhew,  1763.   Life  of  Mayhew,  p.  246. 

2  East  Apthorp  to  the  Secretary.     Perry's  Coll.  iii.  500. 
8  Observations  on  the  Charter,  etc.  of  the  Society,  p.  107. 


508  THE  REVOLUTION. 

most  of  his  sermons,  of  which  he  published  a  great 
number,  he  introduces  some  malicious  invectives 
against  the  society  or  the  Church  of  England,  and  i£ 
at  any  time  the  most  candid  and  gentle  remarks  are 
made  upon  such  abuse,  he  breaks  forth  into  such  bit- 
ter and  scurrilous  personal  reflections,  that  in  truth 
no  one  cares  to  have  anything  to  do  with  him.  His 
doctrinal  principles,  which  seem  chiefly  copied  from 
Ld  Shaftsbury,  Bolingbroke,  &c.,  are  so  offensive  to 
the  generalty  of  the  dissenting  ministers,  that  they 
refuse  to  admit  him  a  member  of  their  association, 
yet  they  appear  to  be  pleased  with  his  abusing  the 
Church  of  England."  l 

The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  himself  now  inter- 
fered, and  tried  to  calm  the  tumult  by  a  candid  and 
dignified  reply  to  Dr.  Mayhew,  in  which  he  labored  to 
show  the  harmlessness  of  the  proposed  bishopric. 

"  Therefore  it  is  desired,  that  two  or  more  bishops 
may  be  appointed  for  them,  to  reside  where  his  majesty 
shall  think  most  convenient  [not  in  New  England, 
but  in  one  of  the  Episcopalian  colonies]  ;  that  they 
may  have  no  concern  in  the  least  with  any  person  who 
do  not  profess  themselves  to  be  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, but  may  ordain  ministers  for  such  as  do  ;  .  .  . 
and  take  such  oversight  of  the  Episcopal  clergy,  as  the 
Bishop  of  London's  commissaries  in  those  parts  have 
been  empowered  to  take,  and  have  taken,  without 
offence.  But  it  is  not  desired  in  the  least  that  they 

1  Rev.  Mr.  Caner  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  June  8, 
1763.  Perry's  Cott.  iii.  497,  498. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  509 

should  hold  courts  ...  or  be  vested  with  any  author- 
ity, now  exercised  either  by  provincial  governors  or 
subordinate  magistrates,  or  infringe  or  diminish  any 
privileges  and  liberties  enjoyed  by  any  of  the  laity, 
even  of  our  own  communion."  l 

But  the  archbishop  should  have  known  that  the 
passions  of  rival  ecclesiastics  are  not  to  be  allayed. 
The  Episcopalians  had  become  so  exasperated  as  to 
want  nothing  less  than  the  overthrow  of  popular  gov- 
ernment. Dr.  Johnson  wrote  in  1763 :  "  Is  there  then 
nothing  more  that  can  be  done  either  for  obtaining 
bishops  or  demolishing  these  pernicious  charter  gov- 
ernments, and  reducing  them  all  to  one  form  in  im- 
mediate dependence  on  the  king?  I  cannot  help  call- 
ing them  pernicious,  for  they  are  indeed  so  as  well  for 
the  best  good  of  the  people  themselves  as  for  the  in- 
terests of  true  religion."  2 

The  Congregation  alists,  on  the  other  hand,  inflamed 
with  jealousy,  were  ripe  for  rebellion.  On  March  22, 
1765,  the  Stamp  Act  became  law,  and  the  clergy 
threw  themselves  into  the  combat  with  characteristic 
violence.  Oliver  had  been  appointed  distributor,  but 
his  house  was  attacked  and  he  was  forced  to  resign. 
The  next  evening  but  one  the  rabble  visited  Hutch- 
inson,  who  was  lieutenant-governor,  and  broke  his 
windows ;  and  there  was  general  fear  of  further  riot- 
ing. In  the  midst  of  this  crisis.,  on  the  25th  of  Au- 

1  An  Answer  to  Dr.  Mayhew's  Observations,  etc.  Dr.  Seeker, 
p.  51. 

8  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson,  p.  279. 


510  THE  REVOLUTION. 

gust,  Dr.  Mayhew  preached  a  sermon  in  the  West 
Meeting-house  from  the  text,  "  I  would  they  were 
even  cut  off  which  trouble  you." l  That  this  dis- 
course was  in  fact  an  incendiary  harangue  is  demon- 
strated by  what  followed.  At  nightfall  on  the  26th 
a  fierce  mob  forced  the  cellars  of  the  comptroller  of 
the  customs,  and  got  drunk  on  the  spirits  stored  with- 
in ;  then  they  went  on  to  Hutchinson's  dwelling : 
"  The  doors  were  immediately  split  to  pieces  with 
broad  axes,  and  a  way  made  there,  and  at  the  win- 
dows, for  the  entry  of  the  mob ;  which  poured  in,  and 
filled,  in  an  instant,  every  room.  .  .  .  They  continued 
their  possession  until  daylight ;  destroyed  .  .  .  every- 
thing .  .  .  except  the  walls,  .  .  .  and  had  begun  to 
break  away  the  brick- work."  2  His  irreplaceable  col- 
lection of  original  papers  was  thrown  into  the  street ; 
and  when  a  bystander  interfered  in  the  hope  of  saving 
some  of  them,  "answer  was  made,  that  it  had  been 
resolved  to  destroy  everything  in  the  house ;  and  such 
resolve  should  be  carried  to  effect."  3  Malice  so  bit- 
ter bears  the  peculiar  ecclesiastical  tinge,  and  is  ex- 
plained by  the  confession  of  one  of  the  ring-leaders, 
who,  when  subsequently  arrested,  said  he  had  been 
excited  by  the  sermon,  "and  that  he  thought  he  was 
doing  God  service."  4 

The  outbreak  met  with  general  condemnation,  and 
Dr.  Mayhew,  who  saw  he  had  gone  too  far,  tried  to 
excuse  himself  :  — 

1  Galatians  v.  12.  a  Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  124. 

8  Idem,  p.  125,  note.  *  Idem,  p.  123. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  511 

"  SIR,  —  I  take  the  freedom  to  write  you  a  few 
lines,  by  way  of  condolence,  on  account  of  the  almost 
unparalleled  outrages  committed  at  your  house  last 
evening ;  and  the  great  damage  which  I  understand 
you  have  suffered  thereby.  God  is  my  witness,  that, 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  I  detest  these  proceed- 
ings ;  that  I  am  most  sincerely  grieved  at  them,  and 
have  a  deep  sympathy  with  you  and  your  distressed 
family  on  this  occasion."  l 

Nevertheless,  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  which 
pacified  the  laity,  left  the  clergy  as  hot  as  ever ;  and 
so  early  as  1768,  when  no  one  outside  of  the  inmost 
ecclesiastical  circle  yet  dreamed  of  independence,  but 
when  the  Rev.  Andrew  Eliot  thought  the  erection  of 
the  bishopric  was  near,  he  frankly  told  Hollis  he  an- 
ticipated war. 

"  You  will  see  by  this  pamphlet,  how  we  are  ca- 
joled. A  colony  bishop  is  to  be  a  more  innocent 
creature  than  ever  a  bishop  was,  since  diocesan  bish- 
ops were  introduced  to  lord  it  over  God's  heritage. 
.  .  .  Can  the  A-b-p,  and  his  tools,  think  to  impose  on 
the  colonists  by  these  artful  representations.  .  .  .  The 
people  of  New  England  are  greatly  alarmed ;  the 
arrival  of  a  bishop  would  raise  them  as  much  as  any 
one  thing.  .  .  .  Our  General  Court  is  now  sitting. 
I  have  hinted  to  some  of  the  members,  that  it  will  be 
proper  for  them  to  express  their  fears  of  the  setting 
up  an  hierarchy  here.  I  am  well  assured  a  motion 
will  be  made  to  this  purpose.  ...  I  may  be  mistaken, 
1  Mayhew  to  Hutchinson.  Life  of  Mayliew,  p.  420. 


512  THE  REVOLUTION. 

but  I  am  persuaded  the  dispute  between  Great  Britain 
and  her  colonies  will  never  be  amicably  settled.  .  .  . 
I  sent  you  a  few  hasty  remarks  on  the  A-b-p's  sermon. 
...  I  am  more  and  more  convinced  of  the  meanness, 
art  —  if  he  was  not  in  so  high  a  station,  I  should  say, 
falsehood  —  of  that  Arch-Pr-1-te."  J 

An  established  priesthood  is  naturally  the  firmest 
support  of  despotism ;  but  the  course  of  events  made 
that  of  Massachusetts  revolutionary.  This  was  a  social 
factor  whose  importance  it  is  hard  to  overestimate ;  for 
though  the  influence  of  the  elders  had  much  declined 
during  the  eighteenth  century,  their  political  power 
was  still  immense ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  measure 
the  degree  in  which  the  drift  of  feeling  toward  inde- 
pendence would  have  been  arrested  had  they  been 
thoroughly  loyal.  At  all  events,  the  evidence  tends 
to  show  that  it  is  most  improbable  the  first  blood 
would  have  been  shed  in  the  streets  of  Boston  had  it 
been  the  policy  of  Great  Britain  to  conciliate  the 
Congregational  Church ;  if,  for  example,  the  liberals 
had  been  forced  to  meet  the  issue  of  taxation  upon 
a  statute  designed  to  raise  a  revenue  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  evangelical  clergy.  How  potent  an  ally 
King  George  lost  by  incurring  their  hatred  may  be 
judged  by  the  devotion  of  the  Episcopalian  pastors, 
many  of  whom  were  of  the  same  blood  as  their  Cal- 
vinistic  brethren,  often,  like  Cutler  and  Johnson,  con- 
verts. They  all  showed  the  same  intensity  of  feeling ; 

1  Thomas  Seeker.  Andrew  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  Jan.  5, 
1768.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fourth  series,  iv.  422. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  513 

all  were  Tories,  not  one  wavered ;  and  they  boasted 
that  they  were  long  able  to  hold  their  parishioners  in 
check. 

In  September,  1765,  those  of  Connecticut  wrote  to 
the  secretary,  "  although  the  commotions  and  disaf- 
fection in  this  country  are  very  great  at  present,  rel- 
ative to  what  they  call  the  imposition  of  stamp  duties, 
yet  .  .  .  the  people  of  the  Church  of  England,  in 
general,  in  this  colony,  as  we  hear,  .  .  .  and  those,  in 
particular,  under  our  respective  charges,  are  of  a  con- 
trary temper  and  conduct ;  esteeming  it  nothing  short 
of  rebellion  to  speak  evil  of  dignities,  and  to  avow 
opposition  to  this  last  act  of  Parliament.  .  .  . 

"  We  think  it  our  incumbent  duty  to  warn  our 
hearers,  in  particular,  of  the  unreasonableness  and 
wickedness  of  their  taking  the  least  part  in  any  tu- 
mult or  opposition  to  his  majesty's  acts,  and  we  have 
obvious  reasons  for  the  fullest  persuasion,  that  they 
will  steadily  behave  themselves  as  true  and  faithful 
subjects  to  his  majesty's  person  and  government."  l 

Even  so  late  as  April,  1775,  Mr.  Caner,  at  Boston, 
felt  justified  in  making  a  very  similar  report  to  the 
society  :  "  Our  clergy  have  in  the  midst  of  these  con- 
fusions behaved  I  think  with  remarkable  prudence. 
None  of  them  have  been  hindered  from  exercising  the 
duties  of  their  office  since  M?  Peters,  tho'  many  of 
them  have  been  much  threat'ned ;  and  as  their  people 
have  for  the  most  part  remained  firm  and  steadfast  in 
their  loyalty  and  attachment  to  goverment,  the  clergy 
1  Conn.  Church  Doc.  ii.  81. 


514  THE  REVOLUTION. 

feel  themselves  supported  by  a  conscious  satisfaction 
that  their  labors  have  not  been  in  vain."  l 

Nor  did  they  shrink  because  of  danger  from  setting 
an  example  of  passive  obedience  to  their  congrega- 
tions. The  Rev.  Dr.  Beach  graduated  at  Yale  in 
1721  and  became  the  Congregational  pastor  of  New- 
town.  He  was  afterward  converted,  and  during  the 
war  was  forbidden  to  read  the  prayers  for  the  royal 
family ;  but  he  replied,  "  that  he  would  do  his  duty, 
preach  and  pray  for  the  king,  till  the  rebels  cut  out 
his  tongue."  2 

In  estimating  the  energy  of  a  social  force,  such  as 
ecclesiasticism,  the  indirect  are  often  more  striking 
than  the  direct  manifestations  of  power,  and  this  is 
eminently  true  of  Massachusetts;  for,  notwithstand- 
ing her  ministers  had  always  been  astute  and  inde- 
fatigable politicians,  their  greatest  triumphs  were  in- 
variably won  by  some  layman  whose  mind  they  had 
moulded  and  whom  they  put  forward  as  their  cham- 
pion. From  John  Winthrop,  who  was  the  first,  an 
almost  unbroken  line  of  these  redoubtable  partisans 
stretched  down  to  the  Revolution,  where  it  ended  with 
him  who  is  perhaps  the  most  celebrated  of  all. 

Samuel  Adams  has  been  called  the  last  of  the 
Puritans.  He  was  indeed  the  incarnation  of  those 
qualities  which  led  to  eminence  under  the  theocracy. 
A  I'igid  Calvinist,  reticent,  cool,  and  brave,  matchless 
in  intrigue,  and  tireless  in  purpose,  his  cause  was  al- 
ways holy,  and  therefore  sanctified  the  means. 

1  Perry's  Coll.  iii.  579. 

2  O'Callaghan  Documents,  iii.  1053,  8vo  ed. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  515 

Professor  Hosmer  thus  describes  him:  "It  was, 
however,  as  a  manager  of  men  that  Samuel  Adams 
was  greatest.  Such  a  master  of  the  methods  by  which 
a  town-meeting  may  be  swayed,  the  world  has  never 
seen.  On  the  best  of  terms  with  the  people,  the  ship- 
yard men,  the  distillers,  the  sailors,  as  well  as  the 
merchants  and  ministers,  he  knew  precisely  what 
springs  to  touch.  He  was  the  prince  of  canvassers, 
the  very  king  of  the  caucus,  of  which  his  father  was 
the  inventor.  .  .  .  As  to  his  tact,  was  it  ever  sur- 
passed ?  "  l  A  bigot  in  religion,  he  had  the  flexi- 
bility of  a  Jesuit ;  and  though  he  abhorred  Episco- 
palians, he  proposed  that  Mr.  Duche  should  make  the 
opening  prayer  for  Congress,  in  the  hope  of  soothing 
the  southern  members.  Strict  in  all  ceremonial  ob- 
servances, he  was  loose  in  money  matters ;  yet  even 
here  he  stood  within  the  pale,  for  Dr.  Cotton  Mather 
was  looser,2  who  was  the  most  orthodox  of  divines. 
The  clergy  instinctively  clave  to  him,  and  gave 
him  their  fullest  confidence.  When  there  was  any  im- 
portant work  to  do  they  went  to  him,  and  he  never 
failed  them.  On  January  5,  1768,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Eliot 
told  Hollis  he  had  suggested  to  some  of  the  members 
of  the  legislature  to  remonstrate  against  the  bishops.3 
A  week  later  the  celebrated  letter  of  instructions  of 
the  house  to  the  agent,  De  Berdt,  was  reported,  which 
was  written  by  Adams ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  ob- 

1  Hosmer's  Samuel  Adams,  p.  363. 

a  See  Letter  on  behalf  of  Dr.  Cotton  Mather  to  Sewall,  Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.  fourth  series,  ii.  122. 

»  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  fourth  series,  iv.  422. 


516  THE  REVOLUTION. 

serve  how,  in  the  midst  of  a  most  vigorous  protest  on 
the  subject,  he  broke  out :  "  We  hope  in  God  such  an 
establishment  will  never  take  place  in  America,  and 
we  desire  you  would  strenuously  oppose  it."  l 

The  subtle  but  unmistakable  flavor  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism  pervades  his  whole  long  agitation.  He  handled 
the  newspapers  with  infinite  skill,  and  the  way  in 
which  he  used  the  toleration  granted  the  Canadian 
Catholics  after  the  conquest,  as  a  goad  wherewith 
to  inflame  the  dying  Puritan  fanaticism,  was  worthy 
of  St.  Ignatius.  He  moved  for  the  committee  who 
reported  the  resolutions  of  the  town  of  Boston  in 
1772 ;  his  spirit  inspired  them,  and  in  these  also  the 
grievance  of  Episcopacy  plays  a  large  part.  How 
strong  his  prejudices  were  may  be  gathered  from  a 
few  words :  "  We  think  therefore  that  every  design 
for  establishing  ...  a  bishop  in  this  province,  is  a 
design  both  against  our  civil  and  religious  rights."  2 

The  liberals,  as  loyal  subjects  of  Great  Britain, 
grieved  over  her  policy  as  the  direst  of  misfortunes, 
which  indeed  they  might  be  driven  to  resist,  but  which 
they  strove  to  modify. 

Washington  wrote  in  1774 :  "  I  am  well  satisfied, 
.  .  .  that  it  is  the  ardent  wish  of  the  warmest  advo- 
cates for  liberty,  that  peace  and  tranquillity,  upon  con- 
stitutional grounds,  may  be  restored,  and  the  horrors 
of  civil  discord  prevented."  3  Jefferson  affirmed : 

1  Mass.  State  Papers,  1765-1775,  p.  132. 

a  Votes  and  Proceedings  of  Boston,  Nov.  20,  1772,  p.  28. 

8  Washington  to  Mackenzie.  Washington's  Writings,  ii.  402. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  517 

*'  Before  the  commencement  of  hostilities  ...  I  never 
had  heard  a  whisper  of  a  disposition  to  separate  from 
Great  Britain ;  and  after  that,  its  possibility  was  con- 
templated with  affliction  by  all."  While  John  Adams 
solemnly  declared :  "  For  my  own  part,  there  was  not 
a  moment  during  the  Revolution,  when  I  would  not 
have  given  everything  I  possessed  for  a  restoration 
to  the  state  of  things  before  the  contest  began,  pro- 
vided we  could  have  had  a  sufficient  security  for  its 
continuance."  l 

In  such  feelings  Samuel  Adams  had  no  share.  In 
each  renewed  aggression  he  saw  the  error  of  his  natu- 
ral enemy,  which  brought  ever  nearer  the  realization 
of  the  dream  of  independence  he  had  inherited  from 
the  past ;  for  the  same  fierce  passion  burned  within 
him  that  had  made  Endicott  mutilate  his  flag,  and 
Leverett  read  his  king's  letter  with  his  hat  on ;  and 
the  guns  of  Lexington  were  music  in  his  ears. 

He  was  not  a  lawyer,  nor  a  statesman,  in  the  true 
meaning  of  the  word,  but  he  was  a  consummate  agi- 
tator ;  and  if  this  be  remembered,  his  career  becomes 
clear.  When  he  conceived  the  idea  of  the  possibility 
of  independence  is  uncertain ;  probably  soon  after  the 
passage  of  the  Stamp  Act,  but  the  evidence  is  strong 
that  so  early  as  1768  he  had  deliberately  resolved  to 
precipitate  some  catastrophe  which  would  make  recon- 
ciliation impossible,  and  obviously  an  armed  collision 
would  have  suited  his  purpose  best. 

Troops  were  then  first  ordered  to  Boston,  and  at 
1  Note  of  Sparks,  Washington's  Writings,  ii.  501. 


518  THE  REVOLUTION. 

one  moment  he  was  tempted  to  cause  their  landing  to 
be  resisted.  An  old  affidavit  is  still  extant,  presum- 
ably truthful  enough,  which  brings  him  vividly  be- 
fore the  mind  as  he  went  about  the  town  lashing  up 
the  people. 

"  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  .  .  .  happened  to  join  the 
same  party  .  .  .  trembling  and  in  great  agitation.  .  .  . 
The  informant  heard  the  said  Samuel  Adams  then 
say  .  .  .  'If  you  are  men,  behave  like  men.  Let  us 
take  up  arms  immediately,  and  be  free,  and  seize  all 
the  king's  officers.  We  shall  have  thirty  thousand 
men  to  join  us  from  the  country.'  .  .  .  And  before  the 
arrival  of  the  troops  ...  at  the  house  of  the  inform- 
ant ...  the  said  Samuel  Adams  said :  '  We  will  not 
submit  to  any  tax,  nor  become  slaves.  .  .  .  The  coun- 
try was  first  settled  by  our  ancestors,  therefore  we  are 
free  and  want  no  king.'  .  .  .  The  informant  further 
sayeth,  that  about  a  fortnight  before  the  troops  ar- 
rived, the  aforesaid  Samuel  Adams,  being  at  the  house 
of  the  informant,  the  informant  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  the  times.  The  said  Adams  answered, 
with  great  alertness,  that,  on  lighting  the  beacon,  we 
should  be  joined  with  thirty  thousand  men  from  the 
country  with  their  knapsacks  and  bayonets  fixed,  and 
added,  *  We  will  destroy  every  soldier  that  dare  put 
his  foot  on  shore.  His  majesty  has  no  right  to  send 
troops  here  to  invade  the  country,  and  I  look  upon 
them  as  foreign  enemies  ! '  " l 

Maturer  reflection  must  have  convinced  him  his 
i  Wells's  Samuel  Adams,  i.  210,  211. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  519 

design  was  impracticable,  for  he  certainly  abandoned 
it,  and  the  two  regiments  disembarked  in  peace ;  but 
their  position  was  unfortunate.  Together  they  were 
barely  a  thousand  strong,  and  were  completely  at  the 
mercy  of  the  populous  and  hostile  province  they  had 
been  sent  to  awe. 

The  temptation  to  a  bold  and  unscrupulous  revolu- 
tionary leader  must  have  been  intense.  Apparently  it 
needed  but  a  spark  to  cause  an  explosion  ;  the  rabble 
of  Boston  could  be  fierce  and  dangerous  when  roused, 
as  had  been  proved  by  the  sack  of  Hutchinson's  house  ; 
and  if  the  soldiers  could  be  goaded  into  firing  on  the 
citizens,  the  chances  were  they  would  be  annihilated 
in  the  rising  which  would  follow,  when  a  rupture 
would  be  inevitable.  But  even  supposing  the  militia 
abstained  from  participating  in  the  outbreak,  and  the 
tumult  were  suppressed,  the  indignation  at  the  slaugh- 
ter would  be  deep  enough  to  sustain  him  in  mak- 
ing demands  which  the  government  could  not  grant. 

Htitchinson  and  the  English  officers  understood  the 
danger,  and  for  many  months  the  discipline  was  ex- 
emplary, but  precautions  were  futile.  Though  he 
knew  full  well  how  to  be  all  things  to  all  men,  the  nat- 
ural affiliations  of  Samuel  Adams  were  with  the  clergy 
and  the  mob,  and  in  the  ship-yards  and  rope-walks  he 
reigned  supreme.  Nor  was  he  of  a  temper  to  shrink 
from  using  to  the  utmost  the  opportunity  his  adversa- 
ries had  put  in  his  hands,  and  he  forthwith  began 
a  series  of  inflammatory  appeals  in  the  newspapers, 
whereof  this  is  a  specimen  :  "  And  are  the  inhabitants 


520  THE  REVOLUTION. 

of  this  town  still  to  be  affronted  in  the  night  as  well 
as  the  day  by  soldiers  arm'd  with  muskets  and  fix'd 
bayonets  ?  ,  .  .  Will  the  spirits  of  people,  as  yet 
unsubdued  by  tyranny,  unaw'd  by  the  menaces  of 
arbitary  power,  submit  to  be  govern'd  by  military 
force  ?  "  l 

In  1770  it  was  notorious  that  "  endeavors  had  been 
systematically  pursued  for  many  months,  by  certain 
busy  characters,  to  excite  quarrels,  rencounters,  and 
combats,  single  or  compound,  in  the  night,  between 
the  inhabitants  of  the  lower  class  and  the  soldiers, 
and  at  all  risks  to  enkindle  an  immortal  hatred  be- 
tween them."2  And  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  the 
British  always  quarrelled  with  the  laborers  about 
the  wharves;  and  how  these,  the  closest  friends  of 
Adams,  were  all  imbued  with  the  theory  he  main- 
tained, that  the  military  could  not  use  their  weapons 
without  the  order  of  a  civil  magistrate.  Little  by 
little  the  animosity  increased,  until  on  the  2d  of 
March  there  was  a  very  serious  fray  at  Gray's  rope- 
walk,  which  was  begun  by  one  of  the  hands,  who 
knocked  down  two  soldiers  who  spoke  to  him  in  the 
street.  Although  Adams  afterward  labored  to  con- 
vince the  public  that  the  tragedy  which  happened 
three  days  later  was  the  result  of  a  deliberately  ma- 
tured conspiracy  to  murder  the  citizens  for  revenge, 
there  is  nothing  whereon  to  base  such  a  charge ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  evidence  tends  to  exonerate  the 

l  Vindex,  Boston  Gazette,  Dec.  5,  1768. 

3  Autobiography  of  John  Adams.    Works  of  J.  Adams,  ii.  229, 


THE  REVOLUTION.  521 

troops,  and  the  verdicts  show  the  opinion  of  the  ju- 
ries. There  was  exasperation  on  both  sides,  but  the 
rabble  were  not  restrained  by  discipline,  and  on  the 
night  of  the  5th  of  March  James  Crawford  swore  he 
he  saw  at  Calf's  corner  "  about  a  dozen  with  sticks,  in 
Quaker  Lane  and  Green's  Lane,  met  many  going  to- 
ward King  Street.  Very  great  sticks,  pretty  large 
cudgells,  not  common  walking  canes.  ...  At  Swing 
bridge  the  people  were  walking  from  all  quarters  with 
sticks.  I  was  afraid  to  go  home,  .  .  .  the  streets  in 
such  commotion  as  I  hardly  ever  saw  in  my  life.  Un- 
common sticks  such  as  a  man  would  pull  out  of  an 
hedge.  .  .  .  Thomas  Knight  at  his  own  door,  8  or 
10  passed  with  sticks  or  clubs  and  one  of  them  said 
'D — n  their  bloods,  let  us  go  and  attack  the  main 
guard  first.'"  1  The  crown  witnesses  testified  that 
the  sentry  was  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  thirty  or 
forty,  who  pelted  him  with  pieces  of  ice  "  hard  and 
large  enough  to  hurt  any  man ;  as  big  as  one's  fist." 
And  hft  said  "he  was  afraid,  if  the  boys  did  not 
disperse,  there  would  be  "  trouble.2  When  the  guard 
came  to  his  help  the  mob  grew  still  more  violent, 
yelling  "  bloody  backs,"  "  lobster  scoundrels,"  "  damn 
you,  fire  !  why  don't  you  fire  ?  "  striking  them  with 
sticks. 

"  Did  you  observe  anybody  strike  Montgomery,  or 
was  a  club  thrown  ?  The  stroke  came  from  a  stick 
or  club  that  was  in  somebody's  hand,  and  the  blow 

1  Kidder's  Massacre,  p.  10. 
3  Idem,  p.  138. 


522  THE  REVOLUTION. 

struck  his  gun  and  his  arm."  "Was  he  knocked 
down  ?  .  .  .  He  fell,  I  am  sure.  .  .  .  His  gun  flew 
out  of  hand,  and  as  he  stooped  to  take  it  up,  he  fell 
himself.  .  .  .  Was  any  number  of  people  standing 
near  the  man  that  struck  his  gun?  Yes,  a  whole 
crowd,  fifty  or  sixty."  l  When  the  volley  came  at  last 
the  rabble  fell  back,  and  the  29th  was  rapidly  formed 
before  the  main  guard,  the  front  rank  kneeling,  that 
the  fire  might  sweep  the  street.  And  now  when  every 
bell  was  tolling,  and  the  town  was  called  to  arms, 
and  infuriated  men  came  pouring  in  by  thousands, 
Hutchinson  showed  he  had  inherited  the  blood  of  his 
great  ancestress,  who  feared  little  upon  earth ;  but 
then,  indeed,  their  adversaries  have  seldom  charged 
the  Puritans  with  cowardice  in  fight.  Coming  quickly 
to  the  council  chamber  he  passed  into  the  balcony, 
which  overhung  the  kneeling  regiment  and  the  armed 
and  maddened  crowd,  and  he  spoke  with  such  calm- 
ness and  courage  that  even  then  he  was  obeyed.  He 
promised  that  justice  should  be  done  and  he  com- 
manded the  people  to  disperse.  Preston  and  his  men 
were  at  once  surrendered  to  the  authorities  to  await 
their  trial. 

The  next  day  Adams  was  in  his  glory.  The  meet- 
ing in  the  morning  was  as  wax  between  his  fingers, 
and  his  friend,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cooper,  opened  it  with 
fervent  prayer.  A  committee  was  at  once  appointed 
to  demand  the  withdrawal  of  the  troops,  but  Hutchin- 
son thought  he  had  no  power  and  that  Gage  alone 
1  Kidder's  Massacre,  pp.  138, 139. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  523 

could  give  the  order.  Nevertheless,  after  a  conference 
with  Colonel  Dalrymple  he  was  induced  to  propose 
that  the  29th  should  be  sent  to  the  Castle,  and  the 
14th  put  under  strict  restraint.1  To  the  daring  agita- 
tor it  seemed  at  last  his  hour  was  come,  for  the  whole 
people  were  behind  him,  and  Hutchinson  himself 
says  "  their  spirit "  was  "  as  high  as  was  the  spirit 
of  their  ancestors  when  they  imprisoned  Andros." 
As  the  committee  descended  the  steps  of  the  State 
House  to  go  to  the  Old  South  where  they  were  to 
report,  the  dense  crowd  made  way  for  them,  and 
Samuel  Adams  as  he  walked  bare-headed  through 
their  lines  continually  bowed  to  right  and  left,  repeat- 
ing the  catchword,  "  Both  regiments  or  none."  His 
touch  on  human  passions  was  unerring,  for  when  the 
lieutenant-governor's  reply  was  read,  the  great  assem- 
bly answered  with  a  mighty  shout,  "  Both  regiments 
or  none,"  and  so  instructed  he  returned.  Then  the 
nature  of  the  man  shone  out ;  the  handful  of  troops 
were  helpless,  and  he  was  as  inflexible  as  steel.  The 
thin,  strong,  determined,  gray-eyed  Puritan  stood  be- 
fore Hutchinson,  inwardly  exulting  as  he  marked  his 
features  change  under  the  torture.  "A  multitude 
highly  incensed  now  wait  the  result  of  this  applica- 
tion. The  voice  of  ten  thousand  freemen  demands 
that  both  regiments  be  forthwith  removed.  .  .  .  Fail 
not  then  at  your  peril  to  comply  with  this  requisi- 
tion !  "  2  It  was  the  spirit  of  Norton  and  of  Endicott 

1  Kidder's  Massacre,  p.  43. 

3  Hosmer's  Samuel  Adams,  p.  173. 


524  THE  REVOLUTION. 

alive  again,  and  he  was  flushed  with  the  same  stern 
triumph  at  the  sight  of  his  victim's  pain :  "  It  was 
then,  if  fancy  deceived  me  not,  I  observed  his  knees 
to  tremble.  I  thought  I  saw  his  face  grow  pale  (and 
I  enjoyed  the  sight)."  l 

Probably  nothing  prevented  a  complete  rupture  but 
the  hopeless  weakness  of  the  garrison,  for  Hutchinson, 
feeling  the  decisive  moment  had  come,  was  full  of 
fight.  He  saw  that  to  yield  would  destroy  his  author- 
ity, and  he  opposed  concession,  but  he  stood  alone,  the 
officers  knew'  their  position  was  untenable,  and  the 
council  was  unanimous  against  him.  "  The  L*  G.  en- 
deavoured to  convince  them  of  the  ill  consequence  of 
this  advice,  and  kept  them  until  late  in  the  evening, 
the  people  remaining  assembled ;  but  the  council  were 
resolute.  Their  advice,  therefore,  he  communicated 
to  Co1  Dalrymple,  accompanied  with  a  declaration, 
that  he  had  no  authority  to  order  the  removal  of  the 
troops.  This  part  Col.  D.  was  dissatisfied  with,  and 
urged  the  L*  G.  to  withdraw  it,  but  he  refused,  and 
the  regiments  were  removed.  He  was  much  dis- 
tressed, but  he  brought  it  all  upon  himself  by  his  offer 
to  remove  one  of  the  regiments.  No  censure,  however, 
was  passed  upon  him."  2 

Had  the  pacification  of  his  country  been  the  object 
near  his  heart,  Samuel  Adams,  after  his  victory,  would 
have  abstained  from  any  act  however  remotely  tend- 
ing to  influence  the  course  of  justice;  for  he  must 

1  Adams  to  Warren.    Wells's  Samuel  Adams,  i.  324. 
8  Diary  and  Letters  of  T.  Hutchinson,  p.  80. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  525 

have  known  that  it  was  only  by  such  conduct  the  col- 
onists could  inspire  respect  for  the  motives  which 
actuated  them  in  their  resistance.  A  capital  sentence 
would  have  been  doubly  unfortunate,  for  had  it  been 
executed  it  would  have  roused  all  England  ;  while 
had  the  king  pardoned  the  soldiers,  as  assuredly  he 
would  have  done,  a  deep  feeling  of  wrong  would  have 
rankled  in  America. 

A  fanatical  and  revolutionary  demagogue,  on  the 
other  hand,  would  have  longed  for  a  conviction,  not 
only  to  compass  his  ends  as  a  politician,  but  to  glut 
his  hate  as  a  zealot. 

Samuel  Adams  was  a  taciturn,  secretive  man,  whose 
tortuous  course  would  have  been  hard  to  follow  a  cen- 
tury ago ;  now  the  attempt  is  hopeless.  Yet  there  is 
one  inference  it  seems  permissible  to  draw :  his  ad- 
mirers have  always  boasted  that  he  was  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  town  meetings,  presumably,  therefore,  the 
the  votes  passed  at  them  may  be  attributed  to  his 
manipulation.  And  starting  from  this  point,  with 
the  help  of  Hutchinson  and  his  own  writings,  it  is 
still  possible  to  discern  the  outlines  of  a  policy  well 
worthy  of  a  theocratic  statesman. 

The  March  meeting  began  on  the  12th.  On  the 
13th  it  was  resolved  :  — 

"  That be  and  they  hereby  are  appointed  a  com- 
mittee for  and  in  behalf  of  the  town  to  find  out  who 
those  persons  are  that  were  the  perpetrators  of  the 
horred  murders  and  massacres  done  and  committed  in 
King  Street  on  several  of  the  inhabitants  in  the  even- 


526  THE  REVOLUTION. 

ing  of  the  5*^  instant  and  take  such  examinations  and 
depositions  as  they  can  procure,  and  lay  the  whole 
thereof  before  the  grand  inquest  in  order  that  such 
perpetrators  may  be  indicted  and  brought  to  tryal  for 
the  same,  and  upon  indictments  being  found,  said  com- 
mittee are  desired  to  prepare  matters  for  the  king's 
attorney,  to  attend  at  their  tryals  in  the  superior 
court,  subpoena  all  the  witnesses,  and  do  everything 
necessary  for  bringing  those  murtherers  to  that  pun- 
ishment for  such  crimes,  as  the  laws  of  God  and  man 
require."  l 

A  day  or  two  afterward  a  number  of  Adams's 
friends,  among  whom  were  some  of  the  members  of 
this  committee,  dined  together,  and  Hutchinson  tells 
what  he  persuaded  them  to  do. 

"  The  time  for  holding  the  superior  court  for  the 
county  of  Suffolk  was  the  next  week  after  the  tragical 
action  in  King  Street.  Although  bills  were  found  by 
the  grand  jury,  yet  the  court,  considering  the  disor- 
dered state  of  the  town,  had  thought  fit  to  continue 
the  trials  over  to  the  next  term,  when  the  minds  of 
people  would  be  more  free  from  prejudice."  "A 
considerable  number  of  the  most  active  persons  in 
all  publick  measures  of  the  town,  having  dined  to- 
gether, went  in  a  body  from  table  to  the  superior 
court  then  sitting,  and  Mr.  Adams,  at  their  head  and 
in  behalf  of  the  town,  pressed  the  bringing  on  the 
trial  the  same  term  with  so  much  spirit,  that  the 
judges  did  not  think  it  advisable  to  abide  by  their  own 
1  Records  of  Boston,  v.  232. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  527 

order,  but  appointed  a  day  for  the  trials,  and  ad- 
journed the  court  for  that  purpose."  l 

The  justices  must  afterward  have  grown  ashamed 
of  their  cowardice,  for  Hex  v.  Preston  did  not  come 
on  until  the  autumn,  and  altogether  very  little  was  ac- 
complished by  these  attempts  to  interfere  with  the  due 
administration  of  the  law.  "  A  committee  had  been 
appointed  by  the  town  to  assist  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  soldiers  .  .  .  but  this  was  irregular.  The  courts, 
according  to  the  practice  in  the  province,  required  no 
prosecutors  but  the  officers  of  the  crown ;  much  less 
would  they  have  thought  it  proper  for  the  principal 
town  in  the  province  to  have  brought  all  its  weight, 
which  was  very  great,  into  court  against  the  prison- 
ers."2 

Nevertheless,  Adams  had  by  no  means  exhausted 
his  resources,  for  it  was  possible  so  to  inflame  the 
public  mind  that  dispassionate  juries  could  hardly  be 
obtained. 

At  the  same  March  meeting  another  committee 
was  named,  who  were  to  obtain  a  "  particular  account 
of  all  proceedings  relative  to  the  massacre  in  King 
Street  on  Monday  night  last,  that  a  full  and  just  rep- 
resentation may  be  made  thereof  ?  "  8  The  reason  as- 
signed for  so  unwonted  a  proceeding  as  the  taking  of 
ex  parte  testimony  by  a  popular  assembly  concerning 
alleged  murders,  for  which  men  were  to  be  pres- 

i  Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  285,  286  and  note. 

3  Idem,  iii.  286,  note. 

»  Kidder's  Massacre,  p.  23. 


528  THE  REVOLUTION. 

ently  tried  for  their  lives,  was  the  necessity  for  con- 
troverting  the  aspersions  of  the  British  officials  ;  but 
the  probable  truth  of  this  explanation  must  be  judged 
by  the  course  actually  pursued.  On  the  19th  the  re- 
port was  made,  consisting  of  "  A  Short  Narrative 
of  the  Horrid  Massacre  in  Boston,"  together  with  a 
number  of  depositions;  and  though  perhaps  it  was 
natural,  under  the  circumstances,  for  such  a  pamphlet 
to  have  been  highly  partisan,  it  was  unnatural  for  its 
authors  to  have  assumed  the  burden  of  proving  that  a 
deliberately  planned  conspiracy  had  existed  between 
the  civilians  and  the  military  to  murder  the  citizens ; 
especially  as  this  tremendous  charge  rested  upon  no 
better  foundation  than  the  fantastic  falsehoods  of  "  a 
French  boy,  whose  evidence  appeared  to  the  justice 
so  improbable,  and  whose  character  was  so  infamous, 
that  the  justice,  who  was  one  of  the  most  zealous  in 
the  cause  of  liberty,  refused  to  issue  a  warrant  to 
apprehend  his  master,  against  whom  he  swore." l 
"  Then  I  went  up  to  the  custom  -  house  door  and 
knocked,  ...  I  saw  my  master  and  Mr.  Munroe  come 
down-stairs,  and  go  into  a  room;  when  four  or  five 
men  went  up  stairs,  pulling  and  hauling  me  after 
them.  . . .  When  I  was  carried  into  the  chamber,  there 
was  but  one  light  in  the  room,  and  that  in  the  corner 
of  the  chamber,  when  I  saw  a  tall  man  loading  a  gun 
(then  I  saw  two  guns  in  the  room)  .  .  .  there  was  a 
number  of  gentlemen  in  the  room.  After  the  gun  was 
loaded,  the  tall  man  gave  it  to  me,  and  told  me  to  fire, 
1  Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  279,  280. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  529 

and  said  he  would  kill  me  if  I  did  not ;  I  told  him 
I  would  not.  He  drawing  a  sword  out  of  his  cane, 
told  me,  if  I  did  not  fire  it,  he  would  run  it  through 
my  guts.  The  man  putting  the  gun  out  of  the  win- 
dow, it  being  a  little  open,  I  fired  it  side  way  up  the 
street;  the  tall  man  then  loaded  the  gun  again.  ...  I 
told  him  I  would  not  fire  again  ;  he  told  me  again,  he 
would  run  me  through  the  guts  if  I  did  not.  Upon 
which  I  fired  the  same  way  up  the  street.  After  I 
fired  the  second  gun,  I  saw  my  master  in  the  room ; 
he  took  a  gun  and  pointed  it  out  of  the  window ;  I 
heard  the  gun  go  off.  Then  a  tall  man  came  and 
clapped  me  on  the  shoulders  above  and  below  stairs, 
and  said,  that  's  my  good  boy,  I  '11  give  you  some 
money  to-morrow.  .  .  .  And  I  ran  home  as  fast  as  I 
could,  and  sat  up  all  night  in  my  master's  kitchen. 
And  further  say,  that  my  master  licked  me  the  next 
night  for  telling  Mrs.  Waldron  about  his  firing  out 
of  the  custom-house.  And  for  fear  that  I  should  be 
licked  again,  I  did  'deny  all  that  I  said  before  Justice 
Quincy,  which  I  am.  very  sorry  for.1  .  .  . 

his 

"CHARLOTTE    -f-    BOURGATE." 
mark. 

While  it  is  inconceivable  that  a  cool  and  sagacious 
politician,  whose  object  was  to  convince  Parliament  of 
the  good  faith  of  Massachusetts,  should  have  relied 
upon  such  incredible  statements  to  sway  the  minds  of 
English  statesmen  and  lawyers,  it  is  equally  incon- 
6  Kidder's  Massacre,  p.  82.  Deposition  58. 


530  THE  REVOLUTION. 

Ceivable  he  should  not  have  known  they  were  admi- 
rably adapted  to  still  further  exasperate  an  already 
excited  people ;  and  that  such  was  his  purpose  must 
be  inferred  from  the  immediate  publication  of  the 
substance  of  this  affidavit  in  the  newspapers.1 

Without  doubt  a  vote  was  passed  on  the  26th  of 
March,  a  week  after  the  committee  had  presented 
their  report,  desiring  them  to  reserve  all  the  printed 
copies  not  sent  to  Europe,  as  their  distribution  might 
tend  to  bias  the  juries ;  but  even  had  this  precaution 
been  observed,  it  came  too  late,  for  the  damage  was 
done  when  the  Narrative  was  read  in  Faneuil  Hall; 
in  fact,  however,  the  order  was  eluded,  for  "  many 
copies,  notwithstanding,  got  abroad,  and  some  of  a 
second  edition  were  sent  from  England,  long  before 
the  trials  of  the  officer  and  soldiers  came  on."  2  And 
at  this  cheap  rate  a  reputation  for  magnanimity  was 
earned. 

How  thoroughly  the  clergy  sympathized  with  their 
champion  appears  from  their  clamors  for  blood.  As 
the  time  drew  near  it  was  rumored  Hutchinson  would 
reprieve  the  prisoners,  should  they  be  convicted,  till 
the  king's  pleasure  could  be  known.  Then  Dr. 
Chauncy,  the  senior  minister  of  Boston,  cried  out  in 
his  pulpit :  "  Surely  he  would  not  counteract  the  op- 
eration of  the  law,  both  of  God  and  of  man !  Surely 
he  would  not  suffer  the  town  and  land  to  lie  under 
the  defilement  of  blood !  Surely  he  would  not  make 

1  Boston  Gazette,  March  19,  1770. 

2  Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  279. 


THE  REVOLUTION.  531 

himself  a  partaker  in  the  guilt  of  murder,  by  putting 
a  stop  to  the  shedding  of  their  blood,  who  have  mur- 
derously spilt  the  blood  of  others  !  "  l 

Adams  attended  when  the  causes  were  heard  and 
took  notes  of  the  evidence ;  and  one  of  the  few  occa- 
sions in  his  long  life  on  which  his  temper  seems  to 
have  got  beyond  control  was  when  the  accused  were 
acquitted.  His  writings  betray  unmistakable  cha- 
grin ;  and  nothing  is  more  typical  of  the  man,  or  of 
the  clerical  atmosphere  wherein  he  had  been  bred, 
than  his  comments  upon  the  testimony  on  which  the 
lives  of  his  enemies  hung.  His  piety  caused  him  to 
doubt  those  whose  evidence  was  adverse  to  his  wishes, 
though  they  appeared  to  be  trying  to  speak  the  truth. 
"  The  credibility  of  a  witness  perhaps  cannot  be  im- 
peach'd  in  court,  unless  he  has  been  convicted  of  per- 
jury :  but  an  immoral  man,  for  instance  one  who  will 
commonly  prophane  the  name  of  his  maker,  certainly 
cannot  be  esteemed  of  equal  credit  by  a  jury,  with  one 
who  fears  to  take  that  sacred  name  in  vain :  It  is  im- 
possible he  should  in  the  mind  of  any  man."  2 

And  yet  this  rigid  Calvinist,  this  incarnation  of 
ecclesiasticism,  had  no  scruple  in  propagating  the 
palpable  and  infamous  lies  of  Charlotte  Bourgate, 
when  by  so  doing  he  thought  it  possible  to  further  his 
own  ends.  He  was  bitterly  mortified,  for  he  had 
been  foiled.  Yet,  though  he  had  failed  in  precipitat- 
ing war,  he  had  struck  a  telling  blow,  and  he  had  no 

1  Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  329,  note. 

2  Boston  Gazette,  Jan.  21, 1771. 


532  THE  REVOLUTION. 

reason  to  repine.  Probably  no  single  event,  before 
fighting  actually  began,  left  so  deep  a  scar  as  the  Bos- 
ton massacre ;  and  many  years  later  John  Adams 
gave  it  as  his  deliberate  opinion  that,  on  the  night  of 
the  5th  of  March,  1770,  "  the  foundation  of  American 
independence  was  laid."  Nor  was  the  full  realization 
of  his  hopes  long  delayed.  Gage  occupied  Boston  in 
1774.  During  the  winter  the  tireless  agitator,  from 
his  place  in  the  Provincial  Congress,  warned  the  peo- 
ple to  fight  any  force  sent  more  than  ten  miles  from 
the  town  ;  and  so  when  Paul  Revere  galloped  through 
Middlesex  on  the  night  of  the  18th  of  April  he  found 
the  farmers  ready.  Samuel  Adams  had  slept  at  the 
house  of  the  Rev.  Jonas  Clark.  Before  sunrise  the 
detachment  sent  to  seize  him  was  close  at  hand.  While 
they  advanced,  he  escaped ;  and  as  he  walked  across 
the  fields  toward  Woburn,  to  the  sound  of  the  guns  of 
Lexington,  he  exclaimed,  in  a  burst  of  passionate  tri- 
umph, "  What  a  glorious  morning  is  this !  " 

Massachusetts  became  the  hot-bed  of  rebellion  be- 
cause of  this  unwonted  alliance  between  liberality  and 
sacerdotalism.  Liberality  was  her  birthright ;  for  lib- 
eralism is  the  offspring  of  intellectual  variation,  which 
makes  mutual  toleration  of  opinion  a  necessity ;  but 
that  her  church  should  have  been  radical  at  this  crisis 
was  due  to  the  action  of  a  long  chain  of  memorable 
causes. 

The  exiles  of  the  Reformation  were  enthusiasts,  for 
none  would  then  have  dared  defy  the  pains  of  heresy, 
in  whom  the  instinct  onward  was  feebler  than  the  fear 


THE  REVOLUTION.  533 

of  death ;  yet  when  the  wanderers  reached  America 
the  mental  growth  of  the  majority  had  culminated, 
and  they  had  passed  into  the  age  of  routine ;  and  ex- 
actly in  proportion  as  their  youthful  inspiration  had 
been  fervid  was  their  later  formalism  intense.  But 
similar  causes  acting  on  the  human  mechanism  pro- 
duce like  results ;  hence  bigotry  and  ambition  fed  by 
power  led  to  persecution.  Then,  as  the  despotism  of 
the  preachers  deepened,  their  victims  groaning  in 
their  dungeons,  or  furrowed  by  their  lash,  implored 
the  aid  of  England,  who,  in  defence  of  freedom  and 
of  law,  crushed  the  theocracy  at  a  blow.  And  the 
clergy  knew  and  hated  their  enemy  from  the  earliest 
days;  it  was  this  bitter  theological  jealousy  which 
flamed  within  Endicott  when  he  mutilated  his  flag, 
and  within  Leverett  when  he  insulted  Eandolph ;  it 
was  a  rapacious  lust  for  power  and  a  furious  detesta- 
tion of  rival  priests  which  maddened  the  Mathers  in 
their  onslaught  upon  Dudley,  which  burned  undimmed 
in  Mayhew  and  Cooper,  and  in  their  champion,  Sam- 
uel Adams,  and  which  at  last  made  the  hierarchy  cast 
in  its  lot  with  an  ally  more  dangerous  far  than  those 
prelates  whom  it  deemed  its  foe.  For  no  church  can 
preach  liberality  and  not  be  liberalized.  Of  a  truth 
the  momentary  spasm  may  pass  which  made  these 
conservatives  progressive,  and  they  may  once  more 
manifest  their  reactionary  nature,  but,  nevertheless, 
the  impulsion  shall  have  been  given  to  that  automatic, 
yet  resistless,  machinery  which  produces  innovation ; 
wherefore,  in  the  next  generation,  the  great  liberal 


534  THE  REVOLUTION. 

secession  from  the  Congregational  communion  broke 
the  ecclesiastical  power  forever.  And  so,  through 
toil  and  suffering,  through  martyrdoms  and  war,  the 
Puritans  wrought  out  the  ancient  destiny  which  fated 
them  to  wander  as  outcasts  to  the  desolate  New  Eng- 
land shore ;  there,  amidst  hardship  and  apparent  fail- 
ure, they  slowly  achieved  their  civil  and  religious  lib- 
erty, and  conceived  that  constitutional  system  which 
is  the  root  of  our  national  life ;  and  there  in  another 
century  the  liberal  commonwealth  they  had  builded 
led  the  battle  against  the  spread  of  human  oppression ; 
and  when  the  war  of  slavery  burst  forth  her  soldiers 
rightly  were  the  first  to  fall ;  for  it  is  her  children's 
heritage  that,  wheresoever  on  this  continent  blood 
shall  flow  in  defence  of  personal  freedom,  there  must 
the  sons  of  Massachusetts  surely  be. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


A     000025755     o 


